Freedom Of Religion?

[Jim North]

Macroevolution has plenty enough solid evidence to place it squarely in the theory range, so it's on plenty good enough footing to be taught as science. Intelligent Design is a hypothesis at best, and a severely problem-plagued one at that.

[Mercury Hat]

Macroevolution is just microevolution in a greater amount of time, and arguably the biggest distinction between the two rests in people's minds anyway. It follows the scientific method, something which ID fails greatly.

[[AlmightyPyro]]

Didn't Rael teach us anything?! We're a big Science project for super smart aliens that only contact people when know else is around to verify it!

[Black Sparrow]

Didn't Rael teach us anything?! We're a big Science project for super smart aliens that only contact people when know else is around to verify it!

*Waits for Pyro to go somewhere where no one's around to verify it and abducts him for thorough brainwashing. And maybe an anal probe.*

[[AlmightyPyro]]

Didn't Rael teach us anything?! We're a big Science project for super smart aliens that only contact people when know else is around to verify it!

*Waits for Pyro to go somewhere where no one's around to verify it and abducts him for thorough brainwashing. And maybe an anal probe.*

That's an enticing offer...

[Laemkral]

That's true. But there is a difference between being truly seperated and not being allowed to interfere. The if a politician has a personal religion and they go about expressing that, more power to them. But the moment they start trying to pass laws that violate the first amendment, they need to leave office.

that's done all the time. all the states in the union do this kind of thing, albeit on a smaller scale, at least once a year. mostly, it's to get intelligent design, a christian ideal, taught in the science classrooms. those measures, like this new thing in missouri, never last long

Basically when it comes to schools, they should be allowed to teach what they want. The government shouldn't be imposing anything more than basic guidelines (math, reading, writing, etc.) If the schools want to teach ID, fine, let them, if the want to teach macro-evolution, also fine, if they want to teach both of them, great. If the parents don't want their kids to learn that, send them to another school. Why does letting people decide for themselves become such a complicated issue?

it's not that about teaching ID, its about teaching ID as a science

Exactly. The government gets to decide what schools teach because schools are government run. You don't like it? Go to private school or home school your children. Schools do teach only basic guidelines, and the push is often being made for more DIVERSE curriculumns that focus not just on math, reading, writing, etc but on culture and art.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and that's what a learning environment is about. The sharing of ideas, the spreading of opinions, and I'm all for it. As long as the class is titled "Philosophy" or "Religion". Opinions do not belong in a science class. Facts =/= opinions.

The day ID is taught as science I demand IDFSM be taught as well. http://www.venganza.org

[Kisai]

I'm going to add my 2 cents since I'm pretty sure few know about it:

My great-great-great grandparents on one side of my family came from czarist orthodox religious russia, from religious persecution. They burned their guns, and were expelled.

They came to canada, they refused to swear an oath to canada, and canada took away the land they were given, they refused to have anything to do with the military, including sending their children to school. Then their leader was assinated, and the everyone broke into two groups, one were the peaceful ones who continued believe in peace while the other half believed that "owning" anything was wrong, and freed cattle and stuff. It came to a bursting point when the government mandated that they send their children to school, but because the government mandated uniforms (uniforms = military) they refused, they then burned their houses and their neighbours houses, and blew stuff up.

Government's response? Take away their children. Put them in a boarding school. The canadian government, and the media spun this as a "Resort" akin to a year round summer camp, in reality it was more like that of a POW camp according to the stories of people who got put through that. Result?

I have a (non-blood related) uncle (who was one of those children taken away) who was convicted of the bombing of an electric tower that caused a mine to flood or something... in the 60's I think it was. Oops, now the entire religion is getting labeled as terrorists.

Whoa... and I'm not muslim.

In fact, the one suicide bomb was an accident. If you are wondering why all in-post-office drop boxes were sealed off in Canada in the 80's, it was probably in part from this event.

Anyway, the "last" event happened around... 2001 or so, this very old woman (possibly going senile) from "back there", set one of the college remote classrooms on fire, stripped and then waited for the police to arrest her, this is what they did back in the 60's. When she was tried for this, in trying to defend her, nobody emptied her pockets from when she was picked up, and she set her clothes on fire in the courtroom. Wow, so much for defence.



Anyway, I neither share the beliefs of either side of my family, nor do I share the beliefs of anyone else. I believe what I want to believe, and I think the best comment was from another uncle when some people (probably Jehova's witnesses) came knocking on his door and his response was "my house <b>is</b> gods house".

We all <b>should</b> know better than to allow people who thirst for power to have it, and only allow ourselves to be led by people that have our best interests at heart, not their own. Unfortunately history keeps repeating itself and politicians keep helping themselves to power. Most of the people that are nominated are nominated by wealthy businesses or special interest groups. Not the majority of people.

[Yeahduff]

Basically when it comes to schools, they should be allowed to teach what they want. The government shouldn't be imposing anything more than basic guidelines (math, reading, writing, etc.) If the schools want to teach ID, fine, let them, if the want to teach macro-evolution, also fine, if they want to teach both of them, great. If the parents don't want their kids to learn that, send them to another school. Why does letting people decide for themselves become such a complicated issue?

It's in the interest of society that our citizens be well eduacated. The better educated you are, the better chance of getting and keeping a good job, the less chance you'll be robbing people in the streets (unless it's Wall Street, but that's another matter). With globalization, the flaws in the American education system are being pronounced. China and India, among many others, are kicking our asses in terms of science. If we wanna compete, we have to discard this boogy man nonsense and teach kids science in science class, not politics masquerading as religion masquerading as science.

[KittyKatBlack]

Missouri: "Hey God. Guess what! We officially recognize you now!"

God: "Uh. Yay?" *waves a little flag*


But seriously. This needs to stop. Just all of it. Relgion is like sexual preference. It's something between you, and the people that share your views. It's not something you declare as law. Bush needs to stop praising God every time his staff actually accompishes something. It SHOULDN'T be a miracle every time we make progress. Even though it currently is. People work hard and get paid to make these things happen. They should get some freakin' recognition for their work.

That's all I have to say about that.

[CorpAmis]

Good point Remus.

That's one of the reasons that I make it a habit to stay away from organized religion. That's just a personal preference, though.

I have my own reasons for not liking to talk about religion. Right now, I think that I rather not think about any religion at all b/c of all the crap that being thrown around "religiously" nowadays.

I don't think Christianity is at fault here, I just feel some Christian believers are becoming too extreme.

Not just Christian believers.....I saw Muslims going crazy and Hindus getting defensive....VERY Defensive...

[Rkolter]

Jim and Merc, Deputy Defenders of Science.

[War]

It's sad that science needs defending.

[RemusShepherd]

It's sad that science needs defending.

Science has always needed defending. Remember Galileo, Copernicus, and Aristotle.

Fortunately, proving its own validity is something science is very, very good at.

[Rkolter]

It's sad that science needs defending.

Science has always needed defending. Remember Galileo, Copernicus, and Aristotle.

Fortunately, proving its own validity is something science is very, very good at.

These two quotes are not mutually exclusive. And both are correct.

[Ahaugen]

i think the problem is that there are too many people who are scared of accepting things that are not absolute ("God created the world in seven days end of discussion" compared to "based on what we've seen so far, we're pretty sure this is what happened, although something else may come up that may change it"). that's why there's so much talk about moral values and the 1950s in America ... everything was precieved to be "black and white" both metaphorically (communism and Soviet Union bad, capitalsm and America good) and physically (television and movies)

[Dr Legostar]

"Faith and Reason are the shoes on our feet, we can get further with both than with just one."

Note that I say "faith" not "religion."

I really wish i could come up with something more insightful to say about all this, but mostly i agree with the general sentiment. Church and State should be seperate, and freedom of worship whatever it is you believe, even if you believe in nothing should be respected. From what I know the real core values of christainity are to treat other people with respect and to be a good person, and yet somehow those values get lost when that fundamentalist minority take over.

[Christwriter]

This whole "Christianity rulez!!!" mindset is disgusting, and it's not just in Missouri. Okay, so they're the majority, right. Maybe they're the one true god. I don't really care. Whatever happened to "Love thy neighbor?" Did they change the Bible to say "Love thy neighbor as thyself, as long as thy neighbor is a straight white Christian?"

Can I make a blanket apology for my faith? Right now? Because as much as I do believe in my faith...this is not the way to do the job. Except I'm not that sure that these guys and me believe in the same thing.

And as for the christian racism bit...

Lemme say it once, and lemme say it loud so the morons in the bread basket can hear it, k?

JESUS WAS A JEW AND PROBABLY ARABIC TO BOOT.

Christian racism ought to be an oxymoron when you realize that the founders were the very people that the racists hate so much. White folks? Not in the picture until much, much later. Is it an oxymoron? No. *sigh*.

CW

[Realityendshere]

Macroevolution has plenty enough solid evidence to place it squarely in the theory range, so it's on plenty good enough footing to be taught as science. Intelligent Design is a hypothesis at best, and a severely problem-plagued one at that.

Macroevolution is just microevolution in a greater amount of time, and arguably the biggest distinction between the two rests in people's minds anyway. It follows the scientific method, something which ID fails greatly.

In the book A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking says this:
"a theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations." He goes on to state, "any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single repeatable observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory."

The problem with both ID and Macroevolution is no one can observe or test either theories. I don't agree with teaching Macroevolution as a science because who can know? And since it generally conflicts with most religions, faiths and belief of God in general, isn't it a form of religion anyway?In which case why is it being taught in schools but not the creation theories of other religions? And then the real question: Does it matter what someone believes about the origins of life? It's not going to affect anyone now is it? I think they should both by in an elective philosophy class... that would really make more sense.

Ok... feel free to blast me with both barrels now that I've opened up a can of worms here...

[/i]

[Aster Azul]

[X]

[Dr Legostar]

No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single repeatable observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory."

I don't agree with teaching Macroevolution as a science because who can know?

see the problem is you'd have to discard everything we teach as a science by that logic.