Rspaight wrote:If you'll pardon the expression, megadittoes.
Again, with the line copping...
Religion in government is evil
Rspaight wrote:...although I endeavor to be fair, I won't put theocratic gibberish on an equal playing field with rationality and religious neutrality. My tolerance ends where my rights begin.
That's a very reasonable point of view. But keep in mind that in most feuds, from the Hatfields/McCoys to the Palestinians/Israelis, the participants all feel that it is the other side that has trampled on their rights. And so begins a reinforcing spiral of hatred.
To use an example...someone who is vehemently opposed to gay marriage can be seen (perhaps rightly so) as hating gays. And a gay couple wishing to be married could easily hate that person in return, with easily demonstrated justification (who is being deprived of their rights here?) Nevertheless, I feel it would be wrong for the gay couple to hate that person.
All I am saying is we should all try not to hate someone even if we feel that our rights are being infringed. BTW, I don't think you guys actually hate Republicans or neocons or dominionists...you're just letting off some steam. However, if you want to hate their principles, go ahead.
But "self-righteous" implies an assumption of moralism, which I don't think is at work here....
I've given this quite a bit of thought, and I think you are partially right.
If someone criticizes an action as being immoral -- "The Iraq war is immoral" -- I don't (usually) see that as being "self-righteous." However, I do see judging/condemning a person -- "George Bush (or John Kerry) is immoral" -- as being self-righteous. IMO plenty of people on both sides of this campaign are guilty of this...if anyone wants to insist that the Republicans were the bigger offenders, I won't argue.
While it is tempting to judge people (for good or bad), we should remember that we are only seeing (or hearing about) a small part of everything they say and do.
I'm not saying my code of personal conduct is necessarily better than anyone else's, just that I don't wish to abide by someone else's code of personal conduct.
That, in a nutshell, is the difference between a humanist point of view (the belief in the importance of self-determination to distinguish between right and wrong) and the religious point of view (the belief that only God has that authority).
While I am not a humanist, I still agree with your statement. Since there are many religions in the world, each with their own particular take on what God "thinks," I have a "live and let live" philosophy and expect to be treated likewise. And I firmly believe in the separation of church and state.
Plus, I am vulgar, at least when riled...
Me too. I like to think of being called "vulgar" as more of an admonishment than a criticism...as in "c'mon, you're better than that."
Smug? How can anyone in the center or left be smug after Tuesday? Cripes.
I guess "smug" does imply a certain amount of placid contentment, which isn't the case here. I stand corrected.
Dob
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"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance" -- HL Mencken
-------------------
"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance" -- HL Mencken
Ess Ay Cee Dee wrote:It's tough to take a cold, objective look at yourself...
No doubt...but for me it's even harder (if not impossible) to try and see myself as others see me. Many times I am surprised when I am told how my actions or words have been interpreted.
If you want to see some real intolerance, take a look at the Christian Right.
Yeah, speaking of trying to see yourself as others see you...the odd thing is that they don't think of themselves as intolerant, nor do they understand how someone else might think so.
What they will tell you is that it's sin that they won't tolerate...as if that justifies and explains everything.
Dob
-------------------
"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance" -- HL Mencken
-------------------
"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance" -- HL Mencken
-
Rspaight
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All I am saying is we should all try not to hate someone even if we feel that our rights are being infringed. BTW, I don't think you guys actually hate Republicans or neocons or dominionists...you're just letting off some steam. However, if you want to hate their principles, go ahead.
That the hard part. (As W would say, it's hard work.) I certainly do despise their principles. And when I see them expounding those principles, it's hard not to despise them as well. Yet, you're correct.
Me too. I like to think of being called "vulgar" as more of an admonishment than a criticism...as in "c'mon, you're better than that."
True enough. But it feels so good. As with all base pleasures, moderation is the key.
Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney
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lukpac
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I'm not sure which is more scary: the fact that people think their personal and religious "morality" should be legislated, or that people think Bush is a "compass for character".
Multiple dimensions to 'moral values'
Observers say catch-all phrase ranges far beyond evangelicals
By TOM HEINEN
theinen@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Nov. 6, 2004
The pundits are scrambling to learn more about people like Christine Jacobs, an Oak Creek evangelical who knows in her heart that moral values matter.
"Moral values were the main component of my decision," said Jacobs, a member of the Oak Creek Assembly of God and a Bush supporter. "I'm aware of the other issues . . . but those issues are really secondary. Abortion and gay marriage were probably the ones that were most in consideration."
Many people of faith who voted for Sen. John Kerry are quick to point out that social conservatives such as Jacobs don't have a monopoly on moral values or on God. They raise deep concerns about the Bush administration's handling of problems such as poverty, health care, and the need and justness of a pre-emptive war in Iraq.
Zoom in on the most-talked-about exit-poll finding from Tuesday's election - that voters cited moral values more frequently than anything else as the issue that mattered most - and a picture emerges that includes many Americans such as Jacobs.
Zoom back out, though, and a more panoramic view emerges of an American where:
# The hot-button issues of abortion, gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research are, in fact, symbols of a deeper, festering discontent with popular culture for evangelicals, according Mel Lawrenz, senior pastor at Elmbrook Church in the Town of Brookfield, and Larry Eskridge, associate director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College in Illinois.
It is a land where families strive hard to protect children from pornography on the Internet, from sex and foul language in the movies, and from sleazy reality shows on television. Or even from sleazy halftime shows at the Super Bowl.
Hollywood for these Americans remains a synonym for disdainful elites, and politicians who stand next to stars at rallies evoke comments of "they don't represent my values."
# Evangelicals have gradually realized they need to take their beliefs to the polls, Eskridge said, but they are only part of the picture.
An analysis by Beliefnet shows that Catholic and moderately religious voters were just as important in Bush's victory.
Aided by advocacy groups and some U.S. bishops who used doctrine to challenge Roman Catholic Sen. John Kerry's more tolerant stances on abortion, gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research, Bush captured the national Catholic vote, going from 47% in the 2000 election to 52% this time.
# More people have a yearning for more meaning and certainty in their lives, said David Miller, executive director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture.
Psychology, science and technology have not solved all problems or satisfied all desires. There is anxiety and dislocation. There is war, the transfer of jobs abroad, fears of terrorism when boarding a plane for a vacation, divorce and confusion about what family and marriage are.
Thus, more people are looking for corporate, religious and political leaders who view the world through the lenses of ethics or faith and can present an authoritative vision.
# There is a continuing backlash from some to former President Bill Clinton's White House sex scandal and Kerry's vote against a ban on partial-birth abortions. Concern remains over other issues - efforts to ban display of the Ten Commandments in public places and opportunities for the next president to shape the nation's moral future with conservative Supreme Court appointments.
Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, warns, though, that "moral values" is an imprecise term.
"It's a catch-all category which should not cloud for you what I think is the larger story here in this election in terms of religiously based mobilization efforts among evangelicals and conservative Catholics. It was huge, of unprecedented proportions. The church-based mobilization and organization was staggering. And I think the more we dig into this, the more impressed people are going to be by that."
Analyses still evolving
Pew Research Center analysts still are analyzing data from Tuesday's exit polls, but some fragmentary facts that have emerged paint a more diverse picture of those who said moral values were the main issue: 42% were white, born-again Christians, probably mostly evangelicals; 7% were Hispanic; 25% were political independents; and 32% were moderates, Lugo said.
Of those who gave top ranking to moral values, 23% said strong religious faith was the most important characteristic for the presidential candidate, 21% said taking clear stands on issues was, and 19% selected being a strong leader.
Pastor Jerry Brooks of Oak Creek Assembly of God is typical of many pastors. He did not tell his congregation which candidate to select. He continued his normal practice of preaching biblical values and lifestyles. But he did urge them to vote and to use those values in their decision-making.
"You will find that the demise of most nations has not been merely war, which clearly plays a part, but it has been moral decay from within, including some of the great cultures of history," Brooks said. "I think people are looking around saying what can we learn from history that can help us maintain our values and our freedoms and our liberties that we enjoy as Americans.
"One of our founding fathers said, apart from God and the Scriptures, there is no force that can keep a nation like this and a freedom like this together. . . . I think many people looked at the environment within our own nation and decided that something is going to have to be done to preserve what we have come to love and enjoy."
As a result, groups such as Focus on the Family mounted large vote-your-values campaigns in English and Spanish, the Southern Baptist Convention did widespread mobilization, and the Republicans used church membership lists to recruit tens of thousands of volunteers, Lugo said.
Pew officials were not entirely surprised that so many selected "moral values" as their top issue. A Pew Research Center/Pew Forum poll in August found that 64% of all respondents said moral values would be a very important issue in their voting. And among evangelicals, moral values rivaled terrorism, the war in Iraq and the economy in importance.
The exit poll of voters conducted Tuesday by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International showed 22% of voters nationally chose moral values as their most important issue. It out-polled the economy and jobs at 20%, terrorism at 19% and Iraq at 15%. In Wisconsin, moral values ranked on top with 21%.
'Talking to God'
Jacobs, who wasn't surprised by those results, starts her day with prayer. Right now she reads daily devotionals from Max Lucado's "Grace for the Moment" and does her own private prayers and Bible reading. She or her husband, Michael, 34, a physician's assistant, pray with the children at every meal.
"Obviously, throughout the day, I'm talking to God," she said. "If there's things that come up, I pray about it. I just try to live it. I try to just depend on God and make sure that I'm allowing him to work through me, that I don't have my own agenda."
Jacobs sees Bush as a godly man who will help things stay in balance.
"I feel that he doesn't just go to church just because it makes him look good," she said. "He actually seeks God. He looks to what God's word says about issues. That's really important to me. . . .
"As the mother of two young children - a 3-year-old son and a 1-year-old daughter - I'm looking down the road to how this president is going to affect the moral fabric of society for not only my children but my children's children."
Church leaders, as well as many of the secular counterparts, meanwhile, said evangelicals and other socially conservative Christians are not the only ones concerned with moral values.
"I think that's the challenge that lies before us as religious leaders, to pay attention to what the electorate has said about their concern for moral values, but to then respond with both attention to that (and) to challenge it," said Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson, the national leader of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The country's largest Lutheran denomination, it is not considered in the evangelical camp and is more liberal than other major Lutheran denominations.
"As people of faith, morality is never only personal and private moral conduct, but it's always in Scripture, especially from the prophets, about the moral and just conduct of a whole people," Hanson said. "And that's where I was disappointed with the seeming disconnect from the incredible existence of poverty throughout the world and within this nation amid such affluence, the seemingly unwillingness to engage the war in Iraq through the lens of categories of just and unjust war, the rates of death to HIV/AIDS in Africa."
Elmbrook Church's Lawrenz says that evangelicals do have concerns that go beyond gay marriage and abortion.
"I would guess what people mean by moral values includes personal moral values," Lawrenz said. "That would include sexual morality, but I think it also generally includes family stability, and I think it includes social morality - justice, fairness, concern for the poor."
Father Dan Pakenham of St. Mary Catholic Church in Elm Grove said he encourages people to vote their values. But he also noted that Catholics, like other people, look at a wide range of issues.
The Rev. Matthew Roeglin, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, in Menomonee Falls - part of the theologically conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod - also said he could not directly endorse a candidate. But it was clear to him that anti-abortion issues, gay marriage, a desire to have a man with a strong belief system handle national security, and concern about Chief Justice William Rehnquist's thyroid cancer were major factors.
Finally, Lawrenz offered this point:
"Here's what I think we're learning," Lawrenz said. "The presidency in people's minds is not just the office of super administrator but is also a kind of compass for character."
From the Nov. 7, 2004, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Multiple dimensions to 'moral values'
Observers say catch-all phrase ranges far beyond evangelicals
By TOM HEINEN
theinen@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Nov. 6, 2004
The pundits are scrambling to learn more about people like Christine Jacobs, an Oak Creek evangelical who knows in her heart that moral values matter.
"Moral values were the main component of my decision," said Jacobs, a member of the Oak Creek Assembly of God and a Bush supporter. "I'm aware of the other issues . . . but those issues are really secondary. Abortion and gay marriage were probably the ones that were most in consideration."
Many people of faith who voted for Sen. John Kerry are quick to point out that social conservatives such as Jacobs don't have a monopoly on moral values or on God. They raise deep concerns about the Bush administration's handling of problems such as poverty, health care, and the need and justness of a pre-emptive war in Iraq.
Zoom in on the most-talked-about exit-poll finding from Tuesday's election - that voters cited moral values more frequently than anything else as the issue that mattered most - and a picture emerges that includes many Americans such as Jacobs.
Zoom back out, though, and a more panoramic view emerges of an American where:
# The hot-button issues of abortion, gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research are, in fact, symbols of a deeper, festering discontent with popular culture for evangelicals, according Mel Lawrenz, senior pastor at Elmbrook Church in the Town of Brookfield, and Larry Eskridge, associate director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College in Illinois.
It is a land where families strive hard to protect children from pornography on the Internet, from sex and foul language in the movies, and from sleazy reality shows on television. Or even from sleazy halftime shows at the Super Bowl.
Hollywood for these Americans remains a synonym for disdainful elites, and politicians who stand next to stars at rallies evoke comments of "they don't represent my values."
# Evangelicals have gradually realized they need to take their beliefs to the polls, Eskridge said, but they are only part of the picture.
An analysis by Beliefnet shows that Catholic and moderately religious voters were just as important in Bush's victory.
Aided by advocacy groups and some U.S. bishops who used doctrine to challenge Roman Catholic Sen. John Kerry's more tolerant stances on abortion, gay marriage and embryonic stem cell research, Bush captured the national Catholic vote, going from 47% in the 2000 election to 52% this time.
# More people have a yearning for more meaning and certainty in their lives, said David Miller, executive director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture.
Psychology, science and technology have not solved all problems or satisfied all desires. There is anxiety and dislocation. There is war, the transfer of jobs abroad, fears of terrorism when boarding a plane for a vacation, divorce and confusion about what family and marriage are.
Thus, more people are looking for corporate, religious and political leaders who view the world through the lenses of ethics or faith and can present an authoritative vision.
# There is a continuing backlash from some to former President Bill Clinton's White House sex scandal and Kerry's vote against a ban on partial-birth abortions. Concern remains over other issues - efforts to ban display of the Ten Commandments in public places and opportunities for the next president to shape the nation's moral future with conservative Supreme Court appointments.
Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, warns, though, that "moral values" is an imprecise term.
"It's a catch-all category which should not cloud for you what I think is the larger story here in this election in terms of religiously based mobilization efforts among evangelicals and conservative Catholics. It was huge, of unprecedented proportions. The church-based mobilization and organization was staggering. And I think the more we dig into this, the more impressed people are going to be by that."
Analyses still evolving
Pew Research Center analysts still are analyzing data from Tuesday's exit polls, but some fragmentary facts that have emerged paint a more diverse picture of those who said moral values were the main issue: 42% were white, born-again Christians, probably mostly evangelicals; 7% were Hispanic; 25% were political independents; and 32% were moderates, Lugo said.
Of those who gave top ranking to moral values, 23% said strong religious faith was the most important characteristic for the presidential candidate, 21% said taking clear stands on issues was, and 19% selected being a strong leader.
Pastor Jerry Brooks of Oak Creek Assembly of God is typical of many pastors. He did not tell his congregation which candidate to select. He continued his normal practice of preaching biblical values and lifestyles. But he did urge them to vote and to use those values in their decision-making.
"You will find that the demise of most nations has not been merely war, which clearly plays a part, but it has been moral decay from within, including some of the great cultures of history," Brooks said. "I think people are looking around saying what can we learn from history that can help us maintain our values and our freedoms and our liberties that we enjoy as Americans.
"One of our founding fathers said, apart from God and the Scriptures, there is no force that can keep a nation like this and a freedom like this together. . . . I think many people looked at the environment within our own nation and decided that something is going to have to be done to preserve what we have come to love and enjoy."
As a result, groups such as Focus on the Family mounted large vote-your-values campaigns in English and Spanish, the Southern Baptist Convention did widespread mobilization, and the Republicans used church membership lists to recruit tens of thousands of volunteers, Lugo said.
Pew officials were not entirely surprised that so many selected "moral values" as their top issue. A Pew Research Center/Pew Forum poll in August found that 64% of all respondents said moral values would be a very important issue in their voting. And among evangelicals, moral values rivaled terrorism, the war in Iraq and the economy in importance.
The exit poll of voters conducted Tuesday by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International showed 22% of voters nationally chose moral values as their most important issue. It out-polled the economy and jobs at 20%, terrorism at 19% and Iraq at 15%. In Wisconsin, moral values ranked on top with 21%.
'Talking to God'
Jacobs, who wasn't surprised by those results, starts her day with prayer. Right now she reads daily devotionals from Max Lucado's "Grace for the Moment" and does her own private prayers and Bible reading. She or her husband, Michael, 34, a physician's assistant, pray with the children at every meal.
"Obviously, throughout the day, I'm talking to God," she said. "If there's things that come up, I pray about it. I just try to live it. I try to just depend on God and make sure that I'm allowing him to work through me, that I don't have my own agenda."
Jacobs sees Bush as a godly man who will help things stay in balance.
"I feel that he doesn't just go to church just because it makes him look good," she said. "He actually seeks God. He looks to what God's word says about issues. That's really important to me. . . .
"As the mother of two young children - a 3-year-old son and a 1-year-old daughter - I'm looking down the road to how this president is going to affect the moral fabric of society for not only my children but my children's children."
Church leaders, as well as many of the secular counterparts, meanwhile, said evangelicals and other socially conservative Christians are not the only ones concerned with moral values.
"I think that's the challenge that lies before us as religious leaders, to pay attention to what the electorate has said about their concern for moral values, but to then respond with both attention to that (and) to challenge it," said Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson, the national leader of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The country's largest Lutheran denomination, it is not considered in the evangelical camp and is more liberal than other major Lutheran denominations.
"As people of faith, morality is never only personal and private moral conduct, but it's always in Scripture, especially from the prophets, about the moral and just conduct of a whole people," Hanson said. "And that's where I was disappointed with the seeming disconnect from the incredible existence of poverty throughout the world and within this nation amid such affluence, the seemingly unwillingness to engage the war in Iraq through the lens of categories of just and unjust war, the rates of death to HIV/AIDS in Africa."
Elmbrook Church's Lawrenz says that evangelicals do have concerns that go beyond gay marriage and abortion.
"I would guess what people mean by moral values includes personal moral values," Lawrenz said. "That would include sexual morality, but I think it also generally includes family stability, and I think it includes social morality - justice, fairness, concern for the poor."
Father Dan Pakenham of St. Mary Catholic Church in Elm Grove said he encourages people to vote their values. But he also noted that Catholics, like other people, look at a wide range of issues.
The Rev. Matthew Roeglin, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church, in Menomonee Falls - part of the theologically conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod - also said he could not directly endorse a candidate. But it was clear to him that anti-abortion issues, gay marriage, a desire to have a man with a strong belief system handle national security, and concern about Chief Justice William Rehnquist's thyroid cancer were major factors.
Finally, Lawrenz offered this point:
"Here's what I think we're learning," Lawrenz said. "The presidency in people's minds is not just the office of super administrator but is also a kind of compass for character."
From the Nov. 7, 2004, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD
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Rspaight
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So you can be the biggest megalomaniac fascist in the world, but if you say you like the Bible, then you're a moral compass and the fundies will vote for you.
What do you expect from a country where about half the population believes in creationism?
This is only going to get worse. What's the big GOP plan to save education? Vouchers, so more kids will go to fundie schools and learn creationism instead of science.
I won't say we're a nation of morons, but I will say that we are a profoundly ignorant nation. And the prevailing force, at least at the moment, is for continued and expanded ignorance.
What to do?
Ryan
What do you expect from a country where about half the population believes in creationism?
This is only going to get worse. What's the big GOP plan to save education? Vouchers, so more kids will go to fundie schools and learn creationism instead of science.
I won't say we're a nation of morons, but I will say that we are a profoundly ignorant nation. And the prevailing force, at least at the moment, is for continued and expanded ignorance.
What to do?
Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney
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Rspaight
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Patrick M wrote:Source?
http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/curre ... l-poll.htm
That chart appears to be for the '97 results, but it hasn't changed substantially since.
Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney
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Rspaight
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- Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2003 10:48 am
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Wisconsin district to teach more than evolution
Saturday, November 6, 2004 Posted: 9:36 PM EST (0236 GMT)
GRANTSBURG, Wisconsin (AP) -- School officials have revised the science curriculum to allow the teaching of creationism, prompting an outcry from more than 300 educators who urged that the decision be reversed.
Members of Grantsburg's school board believed that a state law governing the teaching of evolution was too restrictive. The science curriculum "should not be totally inclusive of just one scientific theory," said Joni Burgin, superintendent of the district of 1,000 students in northwest Wisconsin.
Last month, when the board examined its science curriculum, language was added calling for "various models/theories" of origin to be incorporated.
The decision provoked more than 300 biology and religious studies faculty members to write a letter last week urging the Grantsburg board to reverse the policy. It follows a letter sent previously by 43 deans at Wisconsin public universities.
"Insisting that teachers teach alternative theories of origin in biology classes takes time away from real learning, confuses some students and is a misuse of limited class time and public funds," said Don Waller, a botanist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Wisconsin law mandates that evolution be taught, but school districts are free to create their own curricular standards, said Joe Donovan, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Instruction.
There have been scattered efforts around the nation for other school boards to adopt similar measures. Last month the Dover Area School Board in Pennsylvania voted to require the teaching of alternative theories to evolution, including "intelligent design" -- the idea that life is too complex to have developed without a creator.
The state education board in Kansas was heavily criticized in 1999 when it deleted most references to evolution. The decision was reversed in 2001.
In March, the Ohio Board of Education narrowly approved a lesson plan that some critics contended opens the door to teaching creationism.
Saturday, November 6, 2004 Posted: 9:36 PM EST (0236 GMT)
GRANTSBURG, Wisconsin (AP) -- School officials have revised the science curriculum to allow the teaching of creationism, prompting an outcry from more than 300 educators who urged that the decision be reversed.
Members of Grantsburg's school board believed that a state law governing the teaching of evolution was too restrictive. The science curriculum "should not be totally inclusive of just one scientific theory," said Joni Burgin, superintendent of the district of 1,000 students in northwest Wisconsin.
Last month, when the board examined its science curriculum, language was added calling for "various models/theories" of origin to be incorporated.
The decision provoked more than 300 biology and religious studies faculty members to write a letter last week urging the Grantsburg board to reverse the policy. It follows a letter sent previously by 43 deans at Wisconsin public universities.
"Insisting that teachers teach alternative theories of origin in biology classes takes time away from real learning, confuses some students and is a misuse of limited class time and public funds," said Don Waller, a botanist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Wisconsin law mandates that evolution be taught, but school districts are free to create their own curricular standards, said Joe Donovan, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Instruction.
There have been scattered efforts around the nation for other school boards to adopt similar measures. Last month the Dover Area School Board in Pennsylvania voted to require the teaching of alternative theories to evolution, including "intelligent design" -- the idea that life is too complex to have developed without a creator.
The state education board in Kansas was heavily criticized in 1999 when it deleted most references to evolution. The decision was reversed in 2001.
In March, the Ohio Board of Education narrowly approved a lesson plan that some critics contended opens the door to teaching creationism.
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney
Rspaight wrote:What do you expect from a country where about half the population believes in creationism?
It's not my intent to start a debate here, but there is at least one member of FLO -- me -- that believes in creationism.
I should add, however, that I don't think it needs to be given equal time (or even mentioned at all) in a public school classroom.
Dob
-------------------
"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance" -- HL Mencken
-------------------
"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance" -- HL Mencken
-
lukpac
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There's a difference between teaching *about* creationism (in a religion class) and *teaching* creationism (in a science class).
It all boils down to that schools shouldn't be teaching as fact things that are grounded in religion vs scientific reasoning.
It all boils down to that schools shouldn't be teaching as fact things that are grounded in religion vs scientific reasoning.
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD
lukpac wrote:It all boils down to that schools shouldn't be teaching as fact things that are grounded in religion vs scientific reasoning.
You might be surprised to learn that there is more than one creationist theory, and that some creationist theories are reasonably scientific...but one of the reasons that creationism should be avoided in schools is that there are serious disagreements as to the timeline of events.
For instance, some creationists believe that God created the heavens, the earth, and Adam about 6,000 years ago. Others (like me) believe that the heavens and the earth were created 6 billion years ago (or whatever the latest scientific estimate is) and that 6,000 years ago only the earth was recreated/rebuilt, along with the creation of Adam.
Regardless of scientific merit, the teaching of creationism doesn't belong in a science class because it inevitably involves biblical analysis, which should be limited to religion class.
Speaking of scientific fact, I would prefer that the "theory of evolution" continue to be described as such in public schools.
Dob
-------------------
"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance" -- HL Mencken
-------------------
"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance" -- HL Mencken
-
lukpac
- Top Dog and Sellout
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Dob wrote:Speaking of scientific fact, I would prefer that the "theory of evolution" continue to be described as such in public schools.
Well, that's true with the majority of math/science. Most things are theories (based on scientific facts and reasoning) that can't be *totally* proven, but are generally accepted based on the current data available. We can't see individual atoms, but we still have plenty of scientific evidence to understand how they are composed, how they interact with each other, etc.
My (main) problem with creationism (and fundamentalism in general) is it all boils down to "the Bible says so." And even then, the Bible can be interpreted any number of ways. It can even be *translated* any number of ways. And what about other religions' theories of the history of the world. What makes the Christian view the only one that matters?
"I know because it is impossible for a tape to hold the compression levels of these treble boosted MFSL's like Something/Anything. The metal particulate on the tape would shatter and all you'd hear is distortion if even that." - VD
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Rspaight
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Speaking of scientific fact, I would prefer that the "theory of evolution" continue to be described as such in public schools.
Just because something is a "theory" doesn't mean its veracity is suspect, it's simply (to borrow from dictionary.com) "A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena." The study of biology makes little sense without evolutionary theory.
Evolution can never be a scientific "law", because those are much simpler.
http://wilstar.com/theories.htm
In short, one can believe whatever they want, but only science should be taught as science. Any curriculum that substitutes dogma for science shortchanges its students.
Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney