Laws against murder are not inspired by religion. They are inspired by a government’s resposibility to protect its citizens. The bible says you shouldn’t cheat on your wife, but in most states, adultery isn’t actually illegal, per se.
In any case, before this gets out of hand, no it is not illegal to teach creation science in public schools:
From this site. Granted, it’s from a creationist website, but it’s still valid.
An interesting assertion. What cases can you name where such laws pre-date religious tenets to the same effect?
Laws against murder are not theistically derived and have no connection with any religion, they are purely rationalistic. The difference is the introduction of the supernatural into the curriculum.
When a teacher is working for a public school, he/she is acting as an agent of the state. They are, in effect, the voice of the government. The government can’t teach creationism. I honestly don’t know about the mechanics of charging the teacher, but the school would be guilty of civil rights violations and would be ordered to desist by a federal court if the issue was pushed. Public schools get their funding from the government. A PS which refused to comply with federal law would probably be shut down, and it may be possible that individuals could be charged with federal civil rights violations. They could definitely be sued. IANA civil rights attorney so I really don’t know the details. Hopefully one of our lawyers can help us out.
It should be noted, however, that while there are examples of non-genetic traits which can be passed from generation to generation, these are not equivalent to Lamarck’s “use and dissuse” (typically referred to as “the inheritence of acquired characteristics”). There are also examples of phenotype-affecting extrachromosomal genes (present in the cytoplasm or mitochondria) which fall outside the normal rules of Mendelian heredity.
There is, however, no evidence that an adaptive response is ever transmitted backwards to an organism’s DNA, which is what true Lamarckian inheritence would require.
Well, the devil is in the details, isn’t it?
Since creationism is not a scientific theory and cannot present any “purely scientific evidence” to support it, it cannot possibly follow the court’s guidelines.
This ruling is purely theoretical. if a scientific theory of creationism could be formulated it would not be illegal to teach it. As of now, that standard has not been met.
And so you assert that the fact that all major religions include structures against murder is just a coincidence? Our law did not derive from this precedent? Interesting.
Wht not? Is it in the Constitution? In some Federal law?
It’s completely irrelevent if religious laws coincide with secular laws. The laws of the United States are completely secular and are derived independently of religious laws.
The Constititution is not “a law” (as in statute), it is the law of the land.
Actually, I don’t think these theories do exist.
It seems to me from the sidelines that all biologist agree on the neo-Darwinian synthesis. The gradualists (who tend to reject that label, by the way) deny that they believe that evolution is always slow and never stops, and accuse the punctualed equilibrarian of believing in saltation. The punctuated equilibrarian denies that he believes in saltation, and accuses the gradualists of believing that evolution is always slow and never stops. Meanwhile, people from outside the discipline with a religious axe to grind exaggerate the significance of the squabble.
Regards,
Agback
From this article.
I could find nothing that indicates whether or not Sumerian religion prohibited murder, but clearly their law says that taking a life is punishable by same.
Bolding mine.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Xema *
And so you assert that the fact that all major religions include structures against murder is just a coincidence? Our law did not derive from this precedent? Interesting.
The fact that all cultures forbid murder just shows that forbidding murder is a universally rational thing to do. No, our laws against murder did not derive from any religious code.
Yes, it’s in the constitution. First amendment, establishment clause. The government cannot establish a state religion. That means that the government cannot endorse one religious view over another. The government cannot take a stand on the truth of any particular religious view.
This sounds like another assertion. What evidence can you put forward that, for example, those responsible for framing the early laws in the US were completely secular and derived what they enacted independent of religious law?
The fact that they were forbidden by the US Constitution to pass religiously derived laws.
And as such, it bears on governments, not individuals.
Which means that assertions (as by tomndebb and Diogenes) that individuals teaching Creationism violate the Constitution are specious.
Let’s put it this way: what evidence can you put forward that said laws were derived from religious law?
Not when those inividuals are acting as agents of the government which is exactly what public school teachers are doing.
Individuals teaching in a public school are essentially agents of the government, and are, in fact, state employees, and therefore bound by the Constitution.
High five, on the simulpost, Diogenes. 
High five back atcha, Q.E.D.