# Come All Ye Secularists **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 12, 2010, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861 "2010-12-12T05:51:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SeldomSeen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@SeldomSeen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeldomSeen)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/21 "2010-12-12T22:41:50Z")
Those who try to judge the religious views of the founding fathers tend to overlook the fact that what passes for “christianity” in today’s America bears only a passing resemblance to the founders’ christianity. The gospel-shouting come-to-jesus fundamentalist mentality that permeates the airwaves & pulpits today wasn’t invented yet. Oh, its forebears were around…the puritans, the hard-core calvinists, but they were largely underground. What unfortunately passes for christianity today didn’t really make an appearance until after the Civil War. The founders do seem to have been religious men, but the Christianity that they practiced was generally of a Unitarian/Anglican rational, even liberal variety. A reasonable, sensible utilitarian religion that guided their morals and ethics, they saw no reason not to acknowledge its role in their public life. I imagine the founders would have been horrified by the Falwells, Robertsons, Popoffs et.al. of today and would have fought to the death the schemes of the reconstructionist/dominionist factions. ---
**Author:** ![shy\_guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@shy\_guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shy_guy)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/22 "2010-12-13T01:04:14Z")
> [@Hold\_Fast](#): > > Well…I don’t quite understand why this happens so often, that is, why so many people ignore the general gist of a post in order to cruicify one little section of it…but I’ll work with what you give me I guess. There _was_ no “gist” to your post. It was a bunch of ideas tied together semi-coherently (with insufficient paragraph breaks at that). At the very least, your stuff about the founding fathers (and I don’t think you have a very good grasp on actual law, incidentally) has nothing to do with your stance on education. Your view on the teaching of evolution, by the way, is a paranoid fantasy. It is no more “atheism in disguise” than the teaching of weather patterns is “atheism in disguise” because it neglects to mention the role of Thor in lightning-creation. Your stance on education makes no sense, by the way, and is incoherent. We shouldn’t have public education because the government might turn it into a propaganda mill for sending our youth to war? I’m not even sure where to start with that except that, no, the possibility of that (such as it is) is not sufficient to overcome the benefits of a guaranteed level of education for most of the population. I suspect that your real purpose behind wanting education privatized is so that religious schools can teach their myths as fact. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/23 "2010-12-13T02:11:32Z")
> [@SeldomSeen](#): > > I imagine the founders would have been horrified by the Falwells, Robertsons, Popoffs et.al. of today and would have fought to the death the schemes of the reconstructionist/dominionist factions. So would Jesus for that matter. ---
**Author:** ![Hold\_Fast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/58f4c7/32.png) [@Hold\_Fast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hold_Fast)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/24 "2010-12-13T02:32:30Z")
@Shyguy–Well I have found the true cream of the crop of the straightdopers it would seem. There is no “gist” of what I was trying to say because you, one, dont care about dissenting opinions that differentiate from your own(moreso religious ones), and two, have no real reasoning against me or the thoughts presented other then malicious statements you try to masquerade as such. This is precisely the sort of thing I asked in the OP for people to refrain from. Too hard I guess. @SeldomSeen–Hate to put this so bluntly dude, but it seems your information on the founding fathers has been gathered in an some liberal education institution. Go take a big pile of primary source material written by the founding fathers…the majority of them make hardcore Tea Partier’s look like Lincoln Chafee. @Lobohan–Ha, I was expecting someone to take extreme offense to that. Ironically, I parreted this statement from a hardcore, evolutionist-loving professor who graduated from Brown University. You are right though, I should, as I do, take the time examine all sides of the conflict before taking one. I wish more of your compatriots would follow suit though. Liberalism has seemed to me to be the most extrordinary ideal of which its followers will give no ground whatsoever, and will malign you every chance they get if you possess dissenting opinions. This I think can be seen in some statements made by a quite bipartisan party, the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Now I think these two can take things way to far alot of times in their show, but I can’t help but respect their, “If we make fun of everyone, then its okay” sort of mantra. But specfically, in an interview they were having, they were asked which side do they get more venom from for their shows, and they both quite quickly agreed that the left really can’t take a joke. I was glad to see them say that, because it basically confirms what I’ve already said; that people with liberal ideals and tendancies today will hate you with a passion greater then that of a crusader should you dare question their stance in life. ---
**Author:** ![not\_alice](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_alice/32/7283_2.png) [@not\_alice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_alice)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/25 "2010-12-13T02:56:11Z")
> [@Hold\_Fast](#): > > That the founding fathers believed this absolute government secularism that so many do today. Its really just a fallacy. Except for the tons of written documents, authorship undisputed, by many many of them individually, and all of them collectively, each in plain English, that says otherwise. > [@](#): > > After everything I have researched, I have been led to think that nearly every founding father, with exception of Jefferson, expected the religion of Christianity to be, in some way or another, intergrated with American society for the whole of its liftetime. Care to cite your sources? Have you read Madison’s notes from the Consitutional debates? > [@](#): > > [snipped what is surely a wall of BS based on the above] ---
**Author:** ![shy\_guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@shy\_guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shy_guy)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/26 "2010-12-13T03:09:00Z")
> [@Hold\_Fast](#): > > @Shyguy–Well I have found the true cream of the crop of the straightdopers it would seem. There is no “gist” of what I was trying to say because you, one, dont care about dissenting opinions that differentiate from your own(moreso religious ones), and two, have no real reasoning against me or the thoughts presented other then malicious statements you try to masquerade as such. No, I’m sorry, your post really _did_ make no sense. At the very least the “founding fathers” stuff should have been a separate post from the schools thing, and in any case you should learn the art of brevity. In any event, you do, as I noted before, seem to be very confused about how the law works. I’m also curious as to what an “absolute science” is. \*Edited to add: You also seem to conflate “secular” and “atheist.” It may surprise you to learn that there are religious proponents of secularism, for good reason. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/27 "2010-12-13T03:31:18Z")
> [@Hold\_Fast](#): > > @Shyguy–Well I have found the true cream of the crop of the straightdopers it would seem. There is no “gist” of what I was trying to say because you, one, dont care about dissenting opinions that differentiate from your own(moreso religious ones), and two, have no real reasoning against me or the thoughts presented other then malicious statements you try to masquerade as such. This is precisely the sort of thing I asked in the OP for people to refrain from. Too hard I guess. Usually, the Conspiracy Theorists wait until a thread has been running for several days with lots of unresolved conflict before they whip out the claims that their opponents have no arguments or that one’s ideas are “too hard” to address. You are simply wrong on that issue–and have a lot of errors in the rest of your post. It is probably true that if one examines ALL of the Founding Fathers, one will find a lot more religious belief than some people would like to see. However, you have simply made the same error in the opposite direction. Adams and Carroll were clearly religious. Jefferson and Madison were clearly secularists. Washington was more of a ceremonial deist, (despite my anachronostic use of that term), who appealed to God when it was appropriate to do so in public, but who does not seem to have much in the way of a personal system of belief. The rest of the Founding Fathers were similarly divided in their opinions. You claims about evolutionary theory are merely silly. While Darwin was not a believer, Wallace, who came up with a very similar theory at the same time was a devout Christian. Mendel, whose work on genetics provided the underpinnings that established the validity of the Theory of Evolution was a priest, and Dobzhanky, who applied Mendel’s work to Darwin’s Theory to put the nail in the coffin of every competing theory, was also a devout Christian. Your statement > [@](#): > > Evolution is essentially atheism in disguise. is utterly false. It is not so much that other posters picked on one small section of your OP to avoid talking about your grand thesis, (whatever that was supposed to have been), as it is that your OP was rather incoherent–and your errors have been pointed out to demonstrate how whatever your point was supposed to have been was rooted in error. ---
**Author:** ![J\_Cubed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@J\_Cubed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/J_Cubed)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/28 "2010-12-13T03:54:28Z")
> [@Hold\_Fast](#): > > They want everyone to see the way the world fits nicely into their little view of it. Evolution clearly contradicts the old testament, which is one of the main foundations of both the Christian and Islamic faiths. Now I’m not trying to apply any blanket sweep statements onto the every single evolutionist believer, but as it stands, such people constitute the majority. Many people who know more about science **and** religion than you do understand that the Old Testament is not something that should be taken literally. But, okay, since you seem to think so highly of your half-baked musings, so what if the scientifically understood concept of evolution does contradict the core beliefs of major faiths? It also contradicts _How the Leopard Got His Spots_; are you saying that the secret Atheist-Evolutionist Syndicate is trying to take down Rudyard Kipling? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/29 "2010-12-13T04:15:03Z")
> [@Hold\_Fast](#): > > @Shyguy–Well I have found the true cream of the crop of the straightdopers it would seem. There is no “gist” of what I was trying to say because you, one, dont care about dissenting opinions that differentiate from your own(moreso religious ones), and two, have no real reasoning against me or the thoughts presented other then malicious statements you try to masquerade as such. This is precisely the sort of thing I asked in the OP for people to refrain from. Too hard I guess. Your position on evolution is a good indication of why your ideas are so wrong and dangerous. You seem to want to stop teaching real science because it offends your religion - in this world we need a well educated population, or we’re going to lose out to foreign competitors. If you want an education on why evolution is as close to scientific fact as we’re likely to get, I’m sure many of us can oblige. > [@](#): > > @SeldomSeen–Hate to put this so bluntly dude, but it seems your information on the founding fathers has been gathered in an some liberal education institution. Go take a big pile of primary source material written by the founding fathers…the majority of them make hardcore Tea Partier’s look like Lincoln Chafee. Ever read “The Age of Reason” by Tom Paine? Are you aware that Madison got him out of prison in France? Were you aware that George Washington went to church with his wife, but never took communion. Do you know what is stated in the Treaty of Tripoli, which was passed unanimously by Congress? You can look it up. > [@](#): > > @Lobohan–Ha, I was expecting someone to take extreme offense to that. Ironically, I parreted this statement from a hardcore, evolutionist-loving professor who graduated from Brown University. You are right though, I should, as I do, take the time examine all sides of the conflict before taking one. Is that like a hardcore relativity loving physicist? Have you ever read anything on evolution? What do you think evolution says. I’ve read plenty on creationism, and I’m well aware of the several flavors, from true Biblical creationism to intelligent design in the Behe mode to the theistic evolution variety. So, I challenge you to summarize the theory of evolution, and what you think is lacking in it. ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/30 "2010-12-13T05:49:03Z")
> [@Hold\_Fast](#): > > Evolution _is_ essentially atheism in disguise. Not directly of course, and as many of you have pointed out, many Christians hold it to be true, but its clear that both evolution and atheism fuel each other. Why do you think so many today are so fervently trying to cram evolution into the curriculum? Dude you are making some pretty bold statements. The Majority of Christians believe in Evolution. It is the loony fringes that think that evolution = athiesm. Athiests often accuse us of being dumb because of our beliefs but they do not even attempt to understand that all humans are on a bell curve with Dawkins at one end and the fundys at the other. Education run by private companies I support but we still need government run schools otherwise education quickly becomes just another business run for a profit at the expense of poorer kids. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/31 "2010-12-13T06:03:28Z")
> [@Hold\_Fast](#): > > You are right though, I should, as I do, take the time examine all sides of the conflict before taking one. I wish more of your compatriots would follow suit though. What makes you think we haven’t examined these ideas in detail before dismissing them? Nothing in your OP is particularly new - we’ve seen all these ideas multiple times - well, except for “public education causes wars,” which is admittedly a new one on me. Just because an idea is roundly, or even forcefully, rejected, does not mean that the person rejecting it hasn’t examined it. > [@](#): > > Liberalism has seemed to me to be the most extrordinary ideal of which its followers will give no ground whatsoever, and will malign you every chance they get if you possess dissenting opinions. Your accusations against liberals would bear more weight if you weren’t engaging in precisely the behavior you’re castigating us for when you make them. > [@](#): > > This I think can be seen in some statements made by a quite bipartisan party, the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Now I think these two can take things way to far alot of times in their show, but I can’t help but respect their, “If we make fun of everyone, then its okay” sort of mantra. But specfically, in an interview they were having, they were asked which side do they get more venom from for their shows, and they both quite quickly agreed that the left really can’t take a joke. I was glad to see them say that, because it basically confirms what I’ve already said; that people with liberal ideals and tendancies today will hate you with a passion greater then that of a crusader should you dare question their stance in life. Yeah, or it just means that liberals are more likely to watch their show than conservatives. If 75% of their audience skews liberal, and 75% of the complaints they receive are from liberals, then that would argue that liberals and conservatives are equally likely to complain about things. On the other hand, if 90% of their viewers are liberal, and 75% of the complaints they get are conservative, that would indicate that conservatives are more likely to complain than liberals, even if liberal complaints out number conservative ones in absolute numbers. So, without knowing the breakdown on political leanings of their viewers, their statements about who complains the most are pretty much meaningless. ---
**Author:** ![SeldomSeen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@SeldomSeen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeldomSeen)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/32 "2010-12-13T17:15:08Z")
Thus ranteth\*\* Hold Fast\*\* > [@](#): > > @SeldomSeen–Hate to put this so bluntly dude, but it seems your information on the founding fathers has been gathered in an some liberal education institution. Go take a big pile of primary source material written by the founding fathers…the majority of them make hardcore Tea Partier’s look like Lincoln Chafee. Sorry to disappoint you, err…dude. My sole contact with post-secondary education came from a couple of years at a small cow-town community college (vo-tech division, forestry, class of '82). Hardly a bastion of liberalism. In fact, there wasn’t a pointy-headed liberal professor in sight. (Some of us did wonder about the old boy that taught Psych, but he turned out to be a closet fascist). Not sure what point, if any, you’re trying to make here > [@](#): > > Go take a big pile of primary source material written by the founding fathers…the majority of them make hardcore Tea Partier’s look like Lincoln Chafee but if you’re saying the founding fathers adovcated some kind of “christian theocracy” you simply don’t know what you’re talking about. Witness the following: > [@](#): > > “Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.” — James Madison, “A Memorial and Remonstrance”, 1785 > [@](#): > > “On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.” — Thomas Jefferson to Carey, 1816 > [@](#): > > “As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?” — John Adams, letter to F.A. Van der Kamp, Dec. 27, 1816 > [@](#): > > It then manufactured the allegories in the book of Genesis into fact, and the allegorical tree of life and the tree of knowledge into real trees, contrary to the belief of the first Christians, and for which there is not the least authority in any of the books of the New Testament; for in none of them is there any mention made of such place as the Garden of Eden, nor of anything that is said to have happened there. —Thomas Paine > [@](#): > > Here it is that the religion of Deism is superior to the Christian Religion. It is free from all those invented and torturing articles that shock our reason or injure our humanity, and with which the Christian religion abounds. Its creed is pure, and sublimely simple. It believes in God, and there it rests.—Thomas Paine, again > [@](#): > > “If we look back into history for the character of the present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practiced it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England blamed persecution in the Romish Church, but practiced it upon the Puritans. They found it wrong in Bishops, but fell into the practice themselves both there (England) and in New England.”— Benjamin Franklin Want more primary source material? Plenty more where that came from. But you’ll have to look for it. And to do that you have to learn to\* read\*…Get your material from books and texts as opposed to listening to Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Coulter and other purveyors of wingnut nonsense. Once you’ve learned to actually do research, to make your case with reason rather than rants, to actually debate a point instead of just shouting, then maybe you can come back here and engage in a reasoned discussion. SS ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/33 "2010-12-13T17:44:40Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Your accusations against liberals would bear more weight if you weren’t engaging in precisely the behavior you’re castigating us for when you make them. More to the point, he makes those accusations BECAUSE he engages in that behavior. It’s the “New Atheist” argument in more incoherent form, trying to cast non-believers as equally dogmatic and irrational about their views (about science) as the theists are about their own (about God/religion/etc). When I’ve read such arguments elsewhere there is a very strong undertone of desperate equivalency, as if those making the arguments cannot fathom that scientific theory is not a dogma\* but rather the result of a process of testing. I’m seeing much the same undertones here. Where this all falls down, of course, is that scientific theory changes as more facts are known. Religious dogma rarely does, or at least not without major schisms. Evolutionary theory has come a long way since Darwin. How much has the Bible changed? \*I am aware that some scientists can be dogmatic about their pet theories. These are what are generally known in the business as “bad scientists”. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/34 "2010-12-13T18:17:02Z")
While I don’t really have a horse in this race, I think what he was trying to say was: The majority of the United States is made up of religious folks so why should they be pandering to the secular other side? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/35 "2010-12-13T18:36:35Z")
> [@Kearsen](#): > > While I don’t really have a horse in this race, I think what he was trying to say was: > > The majority of the United States is made up of religious folks so why should they be pandering to the secular other side? If that is what he intended, then he said it poorly. Further, if that is what he intended, he needs to provide evidence that any such “pandering” exists. Teaching science in biology class is not “pandering” to atheists any more than making the absurd claim that > [@](#): > > Evolution clearly contradicts the old testament, . . . when what he intended to say was that the Theory of Evolution was in conflict with the interpretation of the Old Testament to which Fundamentalist Christians subscribe. (Catholics, Liberal Protestants, and a number of other Christians do not impose the same interpretation on the first two chapters of Genesis.) ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/36 "2010-12-13T18:50:13Z")
> [@Kearsen](#): > > While I don’t really have a horse in this race, I think what he was trying to say was: > > The majority of the United States is made up of religious folks so why should they be pandering to the secular other side? Because secular and religious are not opposites? I was a religious child who went to public school in the early 60s when teachers led the class in prayer and students followed along out loud. The schools used the Roman Catholic version of the Lord’s Prayer and I was a Protestant. Every day I faced the dilemma of saying what I though was a false version of the prayer, or saying it the “proper” way and facing the derision of my classmates. I welcomed the secularist ban on teacher led prayer by the Supreme Court _because_ I was religious. Teaching religion school is a disaster waiting to happen. What version of the 10 Commandments do you teach? What edition of the Bible do you teach? Do you get into heaven through deeds or faith alone? Is sacramental wine the actual blood of Christ through transubstantiation? Should we handle snakes, rely on faith healing, etc., etc. And those example are just from within Christianity. And in the end it’s all pointless. The only real issue from an academic standpoint is evolution, and that is not religious vs secular it’s just stupidity vs science. ---
**Author:** ![shy\_guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@shy\_guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shy_guy)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/37 "2010-12-13T19:23:27Z")
That is exactly correct. The OP is basically lumping atheism, secularism, and science into one category and labeling them all “anti-religion.”\* This is obviously false and ignores that religious people often benefit from and support secularism and that all religious people don’t disregard science. \*As far as I can parse the OP, anyway. I suspect I’d have better luck reading tea leaves. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/38 "2010-12-13T19:50:49Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > \*I am aware that some scientists can be dogmatic about their pet theories. These are what are generally known in the business as “bad scientists”. I hope it is okay to restore the size of the footnote. This isn’t quite true. Dogmatism on the behalf of theories is independent of whether the theories are correct or not. Science works not because “good” scientists give up when the slightest evidence against their theory is found, but because it become obvious to the next generation, with nothing invested, that one side or the other has evidence on their side. Science is a human activity, and humans are dogmatic. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/39 "2010-12-13T20:02:16Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > This isn’t quite true. Dogmatism on the behalf of theories is independent of whether the theories are correct or not. But the claim wasn’t that dogmatism implies incorrect theories, rather that it implies bad scientists, which isn’t the same thing. Whatever you think of our inherent predilection toward dogmatism, a highly dogmatic outlook makes certain behaviors more reasonable – e.g. contortions to cram evidence into a particular box – which doesn’t help anyone and can lead astray the more impressionable. (This is probably, but maybe not, much more of an issue in the social sciences …) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2010, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861/40 "2010-12-13T20:17:53Z")
> [@sh1bu1](#): > > Teaching religion school is a disaster waiting to happen. What version of the 10 Commandments do you teach? What edition of the Bible do you teach? Do you get into heaven through deeds or faith alone? Is sacramental wine the actual blood of Christ through transubstantiation? Should we handle snakes, rely on faith healing, etc., etc. And those example are just from within Christianity. Even better, who decides? The majority of both students and teachers in the elementary school I went to were Jewish. If Christian schools get to teach that Jesus was the Messiah - directly or indirectly through prayer selection - would our school get to teach that the Messiah has not yet come? How about schools where Islam is in the majority? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/come-all-ye-secularists/563861.md?page=3)