This is a very silly story.
Spring Hill resident Anita Koper thought she’d heard it all – until last week, when her 12-year-old daughter came home from school at Explorer K-8 and started asking her about “revolution.”
“She said her science teacher told the class that in some religions, if you are bad, you come back in another life as a dog, cow or pig,” Koper said.
She said she soon realized her daughter was asking about evolution, not revolution, and that her sixth-grade science teacher had mentioned the theory of reincarnation.“He also told the class that if you are any religion, you can just go to a Catholic church and they will let you in if you give them money,” Koper said. “I am Catholic and this teacher should get his facts straight before he starts talking about religion. Unless he’s a theologian, he shouldn’t be preaching about this.”
Why should she object to tales of reincarnation? Isn’t it obvious that her daughter is the reincarnation of Gilda Radner?
As Florida Citizens for Science points out, this was a case of a teacher cursorily answering questions that students brought up, prompted by some obligingly vague mentions of alternative faith-based explanations for our origins in their textbook. The teacher was not promoting some kind of bizarre New Age Buddhist-Catholic Prosperity Fusion religion, he was simply trying to cope with a few off-the-wall queries from students who might have been sincere, or might have been acting the smart-ass. The story was further distorted by this young lady, who apparently wasn’t paying close attention, and only echoed the freaky strange bits of the class and even there, got them wrong.
This is not unusual. These are 12 year olds. Little distracted and easily distractible kids in 6th grade.
This, of course, is the milieu into which creationists think it would be worthwhile to introduce a welter of curious myths, superstitions, speculations, and maybe even genuine alternative scientific explanations for various phenomena (but probably not — creationists are allergic to real science), all under the great and sacred principle of “fairness” and the admirable ideal of exposing students to the immense range of human thought, without regard for the filters of likelihood that science tends to throw up. Can you imagine what stories they’ll be bringing home to their parents if the Discovery Institute has their way?
On behalf of Florida, I would like to apologize for this stupidity.
They’ll come homa and say, “Mommy, I want to be a Quote Miner when I grow up.”
First?
Sounds like Momma got her knickers in a twist mostly at the supposed slight at her beloved Catholic church…which , quite frankly, the teacher appeared to summarise accurately in one sentence.
Momma? Did Jesus ride dinosaurs?
jj
Let me be the first to spank you, verbally. Keep it up and you may be the first to be subject to greater discipline.
The Catholic Church will certainly let you in if you give them money. Indulgences aren’t exactly for sale anymore, but they’re willing to talk.
As long as they tell the story of the Great Green Arkleseizure, then it’s good enough for me.
Teach the controversy, before the coming of the great white handkerchief!!!
Sorry, couldn’t help myself, I’ve never even been that close to being the first – I will refrain in the future, well, unless I actually have something worthy to say
Yes, clearly we should be teaching the controversy to children who can’t manage to pay enough attention in class to distinguish between evolution and reincarnation. Lets muddy the waters a bit more.
“Evolution? OH, well, that’s different; never mind.”
Darwin’s theory of revolution? I kind of like that. But is it gradual revolution or punctuated equilibrium?
When I was a kid, about 7 or 8, I thought my Mum disliked Greek people. I finally asked her why.
She was a bit surprised and asked what gave me that idea.
“Because you’re always calling people Cretans”.
jj just gave in that easily because he wants Bride of Shrek to spank him. ;o)
First the girl gets evolution confused with revolution, then she misunderstands the concept of reincarnation, but it isn’t until this half-distracted waif mentions the Catholic church/money connection that gets Mom all “hetted up”? Sounds to me like Mom wasn’t too bright a bulb herself.
Honestly, I wish I could say that no teacher in his/her right mind would say something as dumb (but historically accurate) about the Catholic church, but when we have another “science” teacher burning a cross into a student’s arm, I feel I have to give this girl’s claim some benefit of likelihood.
Hey, who doesn’t like a nice spanking every now and then?
Can you imagine what stories they’ll be bringing home to their parents if the Discovery Institute has their way?
I sure can; those stories constituted my K-12 education, which was as full of gaps and nonsense as you can imagine. Of course, this was pre-ID, so my teachers at least had the fig leaf of being honest about their religious indoctrinating (albeit they were very dishonest about the facts therein).
Can you imagine what stories they’ll be bringing home to their parents if the Discovery Institute has their way?
Unfortunately I have to say that the children will probably be bringing home a fairly accurate knowledge of what they have been taught about ID. Of course, that is entirely because it’s an extremely simple idea designed to appeal to even simpler minds.
Hear, hear!
I can never figure out how they think they’re going to impose their religion in this society, while being immune to other religions being imposed.
We don’t support the 1st Amendment just to keep children from being lied to in schools. We support it also so that lies can be told in churches (the perversity of freedom–but the alternative is worse).
They really ought to embrace anything that lets them keep spinning their falsehoods. The natural tendency would be to stop them from telling their lies, which usually means replacement with some others–from other religions, to secular fantasies like dialectical materialism.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
So reincartion is evolution to these people?
And if they were Catholic why do they care even the slightest if evolution is being taught?
The “let you in if you give them money” sounds precisely like a garbled version of selling indulgences, which was a Catholic mainstay for centuries. Maybe the parent should be concerned that her daughter pays so little attention in class that she can’t remember simple info like indulgences, or that it’s “evolution” not revolution” for that matter.
Then the parent should go directly to her local school board and start campaigning loudly and long to remove all religion from science class, since the state of Florida’s efforts to put it there is at the root of her present discomfort.
Isn’t 12 a little old to be in grade 6? I was 12 when I finished grade 8, being a late in the year birthday. So a February baby would be 13 at most in grade 8, 12 in grade 7, 11 in grade 6 (I can’t do math without Excel spreadsheets anymore).
Could explain a few things.
This is the result of biology instructors trying to satisfy the fundies by teaching not only science but all non-scientific ideas as well.
Individual instructors may or may not be experts in all religious stories; we should not have to be.
A SCIENCE instructor attempting to objectively & dispassionately summarize the views of a particular religion: religion to the religionee is not objective nor dispassionate, and so this attempt will never satisfy.
This is why any discussion of theological controversies to scientific theories belongs in a classroom other than a science classroom: there is nothing that a science instructor can say about a religious viewpoint that cannot be criticized by a member of that religion, except if the instructor endorses it whole-heartedly. And then, of course, the students in the class who are not of that particular religion will righteously protest.
At the start of each of my classes, I flash the AAAS advisory of “Teach only science in science classes”, and then proceed to do so, trying to keep my views of religions and politics hidden in the plain sight of science.
Your missing the equation here Myers
It is to be up to the people to decide for thier kids, schools, country what is taught about the origins of everything important. Let the people vote up or down here or there creationism or evolution or both or neither.
There is a separation concept now used to censor one side alone.
Yet that means one side is being said to be wrong. The bible in its foundations for many Christians is being said by the state to be a false idea. So the state has a opinion and so is breaking the separation concept.
This concept is used alone to stop Genesis or God . Claims of proper science are not stopping creationism. It is the separation concept that is invoked and not the untenableness or science quality issues.
If you can’t teavh God/genesis by a old law of separation then you can’t teach against God/genesis by same law.
It is a separation of church and state and not a separation of state FROM church.
The founding Protestant people would never of meant for this separation idea to be used to censor the truth of God/genesis on origins. Its an absurdity from the ’60’s.
I predict the science class will in time force evolution to defend itself on its merits and not on the strategy of censorship. Its not working now and when the kids get good creationist doctrine there won’t be enough evolutionists left for a volley ball game.
Cut your losses and make more articulate defences of your positions in a winning way.
This is more or less what I said during the Michael Reiss controversy. What on earth possessed him to think that it would be considered “respectful” to start discussing different worldviews in science class? People freak out just at the mention of it!
Agreed.
I just have one question though. When students raise issues like creation, do you just dismiss it as “it’s not science” or do you look at the scientific claims behind the concept?
Am I crazy to think that just about ANY church will let you in if you bring money% Or is there a Reformed Church of Penury?
No, the scientific community implicitly condemns it as a failed hypothesis because it doesn’t match the evidence. Science teachers should only teach what’s scientifically valid. It would be like complaining that in history there’s no mention of the garden of eden. There’s no evidence for the garden of eden, why should it be taught? It would go against the very principle of historical evidence; just as teaching creationism in science would go against the scientific evidence.
The Zoroastrians wouldn’t…
Robert Byers:
Spellcheck and a little work on punctuation and syntax wouldn’t hurt, but I suspect you’re still low on the IQ totem pole.
Garrett @ #22:
The norm these days is for a child to start 6th grade as an 11yo and become 12yo at some point before the start of the following school year.
Oxymoron, moron.
Why is it that every post by a creationist on this forum would be covered in red ink if it were submitted as fifth-grade English homework (see Robert Byers, #24)?
Oh, yeah. It’s because creationists are sub-literate morons.
If you want to get genesis in the classroom, you have to get it through academia first. The science classrooms is only for ideas that are scientifically valid. Basically what you are asking for is that Genesis get special favour and not have to go through the same process as every other hypothesis in science and get put on equal weighting without any scientific merit.
The place to determine the worth of a scientific idea is in the scientific arena where people are qualified to look at the evidence. To put an idea as equal weighting to a group of students who don’t know better is being dishonest, it’s telling them the ideas are of equal merit when it’s simply not so. Whatever controversies there are in science are taught, cerationism is not one of them.
To teach creationism implicitly rejects cosmology, astronomy, the laws of physics, geology, biochemistry and biology. It’s not an alternative to evolution, it’s a worldview that contradicts everything we know about how reality works.
However Rob Byers, astrology could be taught as a science if creationism were allowed to be taught side by side with real science. Do you believe in astrology Robert? How about Alchemy?
Kel,
“When students raise issues like creation, do you just dismiss it as “it’s not science” or do you look at the scientific claims behind the concept?”
When that occurs, and it does, I state that I have tried to find documentation of physical evidence of creationism as some religions define it, and have not been able to do so, and I ask the students to find any studies of physical evidence that they can find that supports creationism.
So far, none has brought any of that kind of evidence to my attention. If any do in the future, I will consider it and ask the other students to consider it, and then ask them to revise their internal model of how the present state of life reconciles with both geology and DNA.
No authoritarian charismatic human: instead, physical evidence and then the most parsimonious explanation from that physical evidence.
Creationist Trolls- people too stupid to know they’re stupid.
Looks like the best way to get the hard-core religulous to turn against trying to teach religion in schools is to increase the number of minority-sect Xians and non-Xian religious teachers in schools. Once they find out that their little angels are being
taughtindoctrinated into an ooga-booga different from their own they might realise just why church/state separation came about in the first place.It’s always impressed me how many of them hate those with other versions of religious belief more than they hate those with no beliefs.
Sounds like a good way of handling it cyan. Do the students respond well to that?
On Belief: Beliefs have damn all to do with science. You can believe anything you want to, but if your beliefs have nothing to do with the available evidence they have no scientific validity.
On Reincarnation: When you’re bad you’re reincarnated as a human. Makes it much easier to appreciate God’s rotten sense of humor.
Wowbagger @#38r:
True. And they would have to include the Mormon explanations of the American Indians’ ancestral lineage (Oh brother!).
What about the American Indians’ creation theories (lots of different tribal lore) or the Hindu theory of origins? I see a whole mess of pissed off xian creotards going “No, only OUR version of creation!” and then the split between each denomination’s interpretation of scripture. “SO, which is it?
Gen:2 man is created before birds Gen:1 birds before man.
Gen:1 man and woman are made together, Gen:2 Man first- woman later.
First day there was light and then water, but the sun wasn’t created until the 4th day. etc.” Fairy tales for Bronze Age goat herders.
“Careful what you wish, you might just get it.”
This will be a shock but we don’t vote on what is real or not. There is an objective reality independent of what your delusions are.
At one point the church killed people for believing the sun orbited the earth. All the dead bodies in the world isn’t going to change the fact that the earth orbits the sun.
Just about any church will let you in for a few bucks. A few cults want the money and your young girl children as well. The RCC is less discriminating and young children of either sex are acceptable currency.
Robert Byers #24:
“It is a separation of church and state and not a separation of state FROM church.
The founding Protestant people would never of meant for this separation idea to be used to censor the truth of God/genesis on origins.”
You make it out as if the separation of church and state concept is being used to actively suppress any religious idea. It’s not. It’s doing exactly what it was meant to do, giving no religious view preference over any other. They are forced to stand or fall on the weight of their evidence alone. Biblical creationism does a pretty bad job of aligning to evidence, so since we don’t give special preference to any religious view, it should be ignored in favor of the theories that do.
You’re suggesting that giving time to an idea that fails on all counts of physical evidence, simply because it’s religious to counter the materialistic explanation, is somehow in the spirit of separation of church and state. That’s as perverted of a separation interpretation as any I’ve ever heard.
Besides the point that carrying your idea to it’s full extension means teaching EVERY religious creation story from EVERY religion, since they’re all failing on any kind of reality check. When are we supposed to have time to teach about the way things actually work?
The proper place for the creationists to win this fight is in the field of science. If they have the evidence, they can effect a revolution and THEN their explanation will be the scientific one and will get taught in school. But they know that ain’t happening which is why they’re trying to do a work-around through the court of public opinion.
“Do you believe in astrology Robert?”
He would have to put it to a popular vote before he could decide. And it would probably just consist of members of his church.
Kel,
“Do the students respond well to that?”
Way that this has been objectively measured – none. I don’t know what they are saying to their religious leaders, their parents, or their peers.
Anectdotally and so subjectively: in the classroom, I hear them discussing their religious indoctrination versus a scientific view. That they are willing to admit that there is a different view from their own pre-existing view, and are willing to try to sort out a more logical view from both pre-programmed information and new information is a token of hope for humanity for me.
Zeno @7
“The Catholic Church will certainly let you in if you give them money”
The implication is that they won’t let you in if you don’t give them money. But they will let you in if you don’t give them money. So, your statement is factually false.
The fallacy here is one of an either/or dilemma where only two options are set up as the only options when, in fact, there are other options that are omitted.
Great post PZ, I was loling all the way through it.
Here’s the plan: we get science teachers to agree to teach creationism in science class – but only when (or if) a committee with a representative from every recognised religion, sect and supernatural belief system (including Mormons and, for some real fun, Scientologists) agrees on which creation story to use.
In the interim – likely to be more than a little while – continue to teach only evidence-based science.
Let me teach bible class. :o)
Wowbagger @ 49
You’ve nailed it!
If I taught bible class, I could consider it a great failure if every single student didn’t come out of it thinking that God character is a total arsehole… just working with the material they gave me.
Despite my post at #44, Robert Byers does have a bit of a point. If all we do is yell ‘separation of church and state’ then some people are going to view that as something we’re hiding behind.
We need to be sure we’re helping people understand why creationism is _wrong_ as well as why it’s unconstitutional.
Kel @52
Let me teach science class. I would tell those young students that they and their parents are descended from some slimy pre-mammal that crawled out of the water in the devonian period. The next day the parents of every kid in the class would be in my doorway looking for my scalp and the Principal would be inclined to give it to them. The parents would claim that their children had nightmares about strange little creatures crawling inside of them; so, they had to take the kids to the Psychologist who declared that I was a callous and insensitive olf for traumatizing children. I would probably be investigated by Child Protection Services for child abuse. But I would have the satisfaction of knowing that I had given those kids the right scoop as they carted me off to the Juvenile Court.
Christo-freaks shoot themselves in the foot from what I can tell.
So this woman was actually saying (without realizing it) that since almost all science teachers are not theologians, they cannot teach religion, and cannot even speak about religion. Whats the problem there?
Absolutely, lets keep religion out of science class.
The truth hurts
Silver Fox, #54, wrote:
I wouldn’t trust you to sit the right way on a toilet seat let alone teach children anything. Don’t try to make people pray in our schools and we won’t try to make them think in your church.
Kel 57
“The truth hurts”
That’s an assumption based on insufficient evidence. Noone knows the truth, so, how can anyone say it would hurt. Maybe it wouldn’t. What I had given their children was not the truth, but rather, generalizations and scientific conclusions based on “available” evidence.
WOW 57
“Wouldn’t trust you to sit the right way on a toilet seat”
This is a frequently used rhetorical tactic aimed at distracting the reader. It’s referred to as “prejudicial language”. You throw out an outrageous metaphor in the hope that the reader will be sufficiently distracted so as not ot detect that what follows is completely vacuous and totally lacking in the presentation of evidence.
Don’t feel too badly WOW, most of the posts on this thread are repleat with illogic and repetitive rhoretic.
Ahh yes, we don’t know “the truth”. Of course not, we are talking about an event that happened 400 million years ago where the limited evidence we have is a few transitional fossils and a shared genetic code. “The truth hurts” was playing on those wanting to incite violence for hearing it, your The next day the parents of every kid in the class would be in my doorway looking for my scalp; it was a joke.
If we want to get serious and actually talk on terminology then we can talk about evidence. But I just assumed you were carrying on the joke which I started when I was talking about teaching bible class.
But “available” seems a redundant word in that case. It’s science, of course it’s based on availble evidence. All the evidence points to the gradual evolution of life on earth. That is not under dispute, the dispute is under the mechanisms on which it came about. We’ve got the transitional forms from fish to tetrapod, from amphibian to reptile, from reptile to mammal, and from non-humans into humans. It’s certain as far as scientific certainty can work for historical science. It’s about as controversial as the idea that the earth orbits the sun.
Silver Fox, you appear to want not to teach science. Science knowledge is found in scientific journals, and the articles therein. If you have another scientific explanation for what happened, please cite those refereed journal articles that support your case. Keep in mind, that anything to do with creationism and intelligent design have been decreed by the courts to be religion. Religion should not be taught in science classes. Period, end of story, no discussion on that fact.
need a match for that strawman?
Silver Fox,
The evidence for the scientific explanation of life, even if incomplete, is still something; it is far more compelling (to the intellectually honest) than the evidence – of which there is precisely zero – for god.
In the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson: Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.
Cram that in your jebus-hole. With walnuts.
Just in case you didn’t know, “Silver Fox” is actually “Max Verret”.
I wish these wankers would stick with one pseudonym.
Well SilverFox/MaxVerret, are you finally willing to show physical proof for your alleged god yet? You failed to do so the last time. At what point does your god become fiction?
Kel, #60
I forget where (I have a talent for doing that), but I do recall reading of how a minor alteration in a skull bone in an early line of lobe-finned fishes marked the split between the lines that would eventually lead to amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. As a matter of fact, good old seymouria is now recognized as an early synapsid, making it possibly one of the first amniote mammals. Don’t you love it when scientific advances play hob with simple, straight forward taxonomy?
Dang, nearly forgot to address this difficulty.
For those of you who live outside the United States, in the American school system children start public school at the age of six with the first grade. Unless a child is promoted ahead of his peers the progression is usually …
1st: Age six
2nd: Age seven
3rd: Age eight
4th: Age nine
5th: Age ten
6th: Age eleven
7th: Age twelve
8th: Age thirteen
9th: Age fourteen
10th: Age fifteen
11th: Age sixteen
12th: Age seventeen
Not all, but a number of the children in a grade will have their birthday during that school year. So some children will turn 12 during the sixth grade.
BobC wrote:
lol, no wonder he morphed.
As I point out in my post at Florida Citizens for Science, the newspaper article focused on the wrong thing. This was not an evolution-related issue at all. This is about two paragraphs that certainly don’t belong in a textbook. I’m guessing that the teacher was painted into an uncomfortable corner because of that content.
“so as not ot detect that what follows is completely vacuous and totally lacking in the presentation of evidence.”
Projection writ large.
Let Kel & I both teach bible class.
I’ll thump the bible and nothing but the bible. That will delight the kiddies. The bible is full of violence, genocide, sexual perversion, and enough naughty bits to titillate every child in Amerika. Unicorn and dragon hunts, witch burnings and stonings will be field trips full of fun!
Several threads back AnthonyK volunteered to be a professor of practical onanism – guest speaker. We pretty much got the start of a curriculum. Once we get to biblical health class, and which parts of the body will get you sent to hell – show and tell will be the most popular class in school.
The bible, they love it, let’s give it to em’.
This is bullshit. My son’s younger brother and sister go to elementary school in that town.
The teacher should have diverted the questions, and the attention, of the class to the wonders of the scientific method. Really, it shouldn’t have been that hard to do.
Isn’t Max some namby pamby, yellow belly, bed wetting sissy, wanna be christian, that couldn’t save his own ass even with a package of pampers?
A True Christian would stand up to these Pharyngula hell bound heathens. Coward! You make sweet baby jesus weep.
I remember an art teacher (lately deceased) I once had. One of the first things he told us was that he considered himself “a teacher first and an art teacher second”. If anyone had told him that he should keep his politics out of the classroom he’d probably have caved in their skull for them. Admittedly his politics included a belief that the UK should have allied itself with Hitler against Stalin and that thieves should be executed for a third offense but at least his class was never dull.
What have you smoked, and can I get it legally in the Netherlands?
What???
I’ve never heard of this idea, and I’m sitting next to my thesis supervisor, who did his own PhD thesis on seymouriamorphs. We are more closely related to the lepospondyls, and thus probably to the lissamphibians (frogs, salamanders, caecilians), than to the seymouriamorphs.
Please do find the source.
RB: If you can’t teavh God/genesis by a old law of separation then you can’t teach against God/genesis by same law.
Hear, Hear! Finally someone who gets it. My neo-Aztecan church has been arguing for years that the human sacrifices to Tlaloc are required to bring rain. These damned metereological theories of Earth Science are a direct affront to our beliefs – and an attack on Tlaloc!
Separate church and state – stop undermining the truth of the child-sacrifice for Tlaloc theory of meteorology!
And while we’re at it, they need to stop teaching that murder is wrong – they’re undermining our family values.
SF: “Wouldn’t trust you to sit the right way on a toilet seat”
This is a frequently used rhetorical tactic aimed at distracting the reader. It’s referred to as “prejudicial language”
No, wanker — it’s called an insult. It isn’t intended to “distract the reader” — it is intended to describe the writer.
It is a perfectly good rhetorical device outside of courts of law to point out the lack of credibility of a writer.
Remember the frog codicile — the first person to improperly call a “logical fallacy” loses!
That’s about what I was thinking. I cringe any time someone uses an argument based on what the law says against teaching creationism. My first thought is always “yeah, because all laws make sense, and correspond exactly with what’s right”. The natural response to an argument like that is “let’s change the law”, which is one creationist strategy.
A separation of church and state argument is a little different, because a very good case for secularism can be made to anyone, regardless of their religion, i.e. so if you move to a predominantly Muslim area, then you’d support your kids reading the Quran in schools?
secular fantasies like dialectical materialism.
Dialectiacal materialism is not a fantasy, it’s a perfectly good analytical tool. Is the discourse down there so corrupt that science must be rejected for being the wrong “political” stripe?
Wait, don’t answer that…
It’s always impressed me how many of them hate those with other versions of religious belief more than they hate those with no beliefs.
Negative. They’ll say rude things, but as long as we godless exist they will happily team up with fantaics of any other cult ot go after us. Evidence: ICR supporting the BAV.
GlenD: secular fantasies like dialectical materialism
Hmm, Glen you need to read up on your history of Marxism. Dialectical materialism is just a variation on the Hegelian dialectic. The Hegelian version is a spiritual/cultural feedback loop; the Marxist version is a materialist feedback loop.
At the beginning of the 19th century, no one had invented yet the jargon of cybernetics — but your ac thermometer functions as a “dialectical process”. Thesis: it’s too hot, turn on the AC. Antithesis: it’s too cold, turn off the AC. Synthesis: the temperature stays around the setting.
The problem with enlightenment political theory, particularly fringe, is that it’s stuck in the 18th and 19th centuries, failing to use all the developments in physics, biology and mathematics of the last 150 years. Libertarianism is even more retrograde.
Dave, #75
Apply your elite Google-fu, cuz mine stinks on dry ice.
Well then. If it’s that important, learn to program, and write yourself a script. Then you’ll always be first.
So, having heard the theories of evolution, reincarnation, and pay-to-pray, I assume the little girl made up her own mind which is correct.
Try this. Let them teach creation is science providing that I can teach evolution in Sunday school.
Jason A post 44
You made the best attempt to show my reasoning wrong.
You said no religious preference is why there is a separation of church and state.
Not a separation of church and state for the sake of separation.
Lets think about this.
The separation clause is used to censor God/Genesis. Yet the opposite opinions can be taught that oppose God/genesis. The state can teach the bible/Christianity ,for many, is false (by teaching evolution etc), yet they can’t teach its true.
Since the state is teaching origins as accurate in results then it does have a opinion on the bible accuracy. It teaches the bible is wrong.So it is showing it has a preference against some religions even while not advocating a particular one.
The state has a opinion on the bible and faith of many.
If the state has a opinion on the bible then it can have a pro-bible opinion.
The state can teach the bible is true if it can teach its not true.
The state is showing a preference over faiths even if not got a particular faith.
Separation means to be separate. No way around it.
Teaching genesis is not teaching religion but teaching the truth on origins. its a coincedence religion agrees with it.
The state can teach God/Genesis because its true and irrelevant if its related to religion.
If the state says it can’t be taught because its religion then the state has said God/genesis is not true about origins and so made a opinion on religion to the kids.
If the people decide on origin subjects in schools they will only pick the bible one and not others.
The people do so know better what should be taught in their schools to their kids on these issues.
In the end the origin subjects are not relevant to the state/church separation.
The separation concept is falsely used to stop the bible.
it was not the idea of the founding Protestant citizens in the 1780’s.
its a invention of the ’60’s.
It shall come crashing down.
Robert, Genesis is neither a scientific or a historical document. It’s a religious prose that is contradicted by every piece of evidence we’ve ever found. It’s censored from the science classroom in exactly the same way reincarnation is. Why? Because neither ideas are scientific.
If you want to teach religion in the religious classroom, go ahead. But keep science where the scientific consensus is, based on ideas with empirical merit; not children’s tales that adults take seriously…
Again, science classroom = science being taught. Genesis is not science, it’s not taught. Do you not grasp the concept that science is only for scientific ideas? Censorship doesn’t come into it, because Genesis is not an equally likely worldview as the empirical one.
But in regard to it being taught to kids; it’s not teaching genesis is wrong. It makes no statement about genesis whatsoever. It’s funny how the Catholics and the Anglicans and the other non-retarded sects of Christianity can reconcile scientific understanding with genesis and still have their faith. It’s only your narrow view of what faith and science are that stops you. Genesis isn’t even internally consistent.
You do realise what you are proposing there Robert, that no ideas should ever be taught that contradict any religious text. You do realise that kills both science and history, correct? Basically implementing what you are proposing would send the curriculum back to the dark ages, it would make students even more ignorant than they are – all because you take a children’s story a little too literally.
To flog a dead horse…
It’s not taught in science because there’s no scientific evidence backing it. It’s being pushed as an alternative WHOLLY because it’s religion. If it weren’t religion, there would be no need to push it on the students. It’s a religious issue, and to teach it when it contradicts all evidence is purely because it can’t stand on it’s own merit.
As mentioned in a more recent thread, I failed utterly.
————————-
Mr Byers, three questions:
– Why precisely the Bible? There are so many religions out there, and each has its own creation myth. Why teach just one of them, and if so, why pick the Bible?
– Where I come from, it is considered blasphemy to misuse the Bible as a science textbook. You know the proverb? “The Bible tells the way to go to Heaven, not the way the heavens go.”
– Have you ever compared Genesis 1:1-2:3 to Genesis 2:4b onwards? Apparently not, because otherwise you’d have noticed that these are two separate stories that contradict each other. Teaching “the Bible” isn’t even possible.