I couldn’t get it to work on my computer. That being said, the theory of evolution is solely about how it works; the fact of evolution is just that, a fact. You might as well claim gravity is only a theory.
Yes. You misunderstand. The (neo-Darwinian) Theory of Evolution is our current best description of how evolution occurs. However, that evolution occurs is a fact. Many people, (generally opponents of teaching the scientific Theory of Evolution), periodically confuse those issues, but they are distinct. Darwin was addreessing a known event that had already been accepted by science for better than half a century when he proposed his explanation for that fact.
Lamarck, Lysenko, and any number of other people have proposed theories to explain the mechanism, but there is no serious challenge within science as to the fact of the event.
Haha, because you couldn’t understand quicktime well enough to make it work on your computer, your response is that I don’t understand what a theory is. Cute. Gravity is a fact but its mechanism is not fully understood.
Yes, I do not deny that evolution occurs and never actually did. I hope to cut a nice fossil record some day. I merely said it is not yet conclusive. As you rightly state, its mechanism is not fully understood and its implications are not fully understood. I do not think evolution is taught correctly in this country. I do not think God has any place in lab science. Nor do I think anybody should say science has anything at all to do with the divine. They are two distinct areas of inquiry and it’s a damn shame that battle lines have been drawn there – as if evolutionary theory discredits God. I brought it up in the first place to show how evangelicals view evolution in much the same way as atheists view theistic governmental speech. With heaps of misunderstanding and hurt feelings, where I don’t see it as necessary.
Regardless of how it’s taught in science class: Those who think the Earth was literally created in seven days are idiots. But those that reject the importance of mythology are equally idiots.
I can’t quite figure out whether this is a deliberate strawman or whether you are seriously operating under this misapprehension.
While it is true that there is, occasionally, an atheist whose case comes to prominence in challenging government interference in religious matters, I can assure you that a very large number of people who challenge the mixing of Christianity (for that is what it always comes down to) and government are, themselves Christians with a smattering of Jews and UU adherents).
As to your persistent attempt to pretend that people have not been harmed by the Christian community for defending the secular nature of our country, you are wrong and, I suspect, you are deliberately minimizing that subject so as to avoid facing the ramifications of your own desire to let Christianity (under whatever name) intrude on the public life.
There is definitely a legitmate place for religion in our society and no one should be allowed to suppress it. However, mixing it with government (and making up tortured strings of thought to pretend that it belongs in government) is not the place to allow it.
I’m sorry but this just seems nonsensical. God doesn’t have much to do with religion? That doesn’t make any sense.
Italics mine.
If the founders had explicitly wanted theism to be officially recognized as part of the government of the United States they could have written it into our Constitution. They conspicuously did not.
Certainly many of the founders were devout Christians. I’m sure that they turned to their religion for inspiration and guidance in drafting the Constitution. However, the document they produced is, quite intentionally, a completely secular document.
I disagree that Christianity is what it always comes down to.
Even now, you continue to believe I am putting forth Christian values. This is not the case. You go along the line that acknowledging theistic values is the same as endorsing a religious establishment of any kind, in particular. This simply is not the case. The so-called ramifications of intrusion are minimized by the establishment clause itself. I do not find that using theistic values in government as a way of defining the national character does this. God is no different from Freedom. It’s a concept you either believe in or you don’t, that cannot really be proven, is very complicated and is useful, rhetorically and ideologically.
I’m not sure what you mean by a tortured string of thought. I’m not sure how allowing for the Divine in political speech violates the establishment clause, in that it respects no establishment in particular. It’s not like I am endorsing politicians telling people to “go to the Church of their choice.” But I don’t have any problem with people owning up to the fact that certain theistic values informed on their conception of rights that the government has now set out to protect [in response to past governments where peoples’ god-given rights were denied them]
That all of this is abused by wrong-minded people is not what I set out to defend.
Please enlighten me. What **is ** the importance of mythology in the quest to understand human origins?
I use the word religion in an Establishment sense. Alluding to God does not predicate unecessary entanglement with, say, the Catholic Church. To me, it seems nonsensical that everybody reacts to theistic allusions by claiming some establishment is supported. This is false. Believing in equality doesnt make you a Democrat. Believing in Liberty doesn’t make you a Republican.
My argument here is that the establishment clause is not elastic enough to make sure there’s no place for theism. And lots of folks are mistaken in taking theistic allusions for untoward support of a particular religious establishment.
And this country has a fantastic secular legal system. I have pointed out many many times that God need not be legislated and that I do not even /endorse/ what I consider to be, at times, tacky God talk. In the same sense that pro-choice folks are not pro-abortion. Get it?
Myths show how the people who wrote them attempted to connect with what they considered universal truths. They delve deeply into intricate philosophical questions.
Don’t you don’t see the relevance of mythology in understanding the developmental stages of culture? I wasn’t suggesting that we look to mythology to tell us how the world was formed, but merely that it is frequently thrown out with the bathwater by dogmatic folks who look only to “proofs” for things,… when so many things are patently unknowable as yet.
Of course it’s elastic enough. Again, the founders could easily have written something like: “While it is self-evident that the hand of the Deity shapes the affairs of men, Congress shall make no law that favors one religious sect over another.”
Instead they chose to write “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion … .” Not *“no law respecting the establishment of *a ** religion”. Not *“no law favoring one sect over another”. * No religion at all, period.
It seems clear enough to me.
Of course mythology is relevant to the understanding of the development of culture. I don’t know of any evolutionist who argues that it’s not. Despite what you say it’s not “frequently thrown out with the bathwater” and I challenge you to demonstrate otherwise.
Mythology, however, is utterly and completely useless for understanding the origins of the human species.
I’ll answer this here, since it covers many of your points. There is a difference between a person speaking as him or herself and speaking as a representative of government. In a speech a Congresscritter can say they believe that a law should be passed for religious purposes (though it might be evidence to get the law declared unconstitutional.) He cannot write that into the law. A teacher can go to church, and tell the kids he goes to church. He cannot lead children in prayer, or give Bible instruction in class, because in that context he is acting as a representative of government. Is the national character you mention Protestant? It was in the Constitutional era, when banning Catholics from holding office was as common as banning Jews. Or is it some weak theism? When the evangelicals are saying this is a Christian country, do you agree, or is your idea different from theirs. Is everyone but atheists part of the national character?
The national character in 1787 was highly Protestant. The founders specifically did not make that character part of the Constitution. We are certainly not saying that atheism defines the character, or even should be the goal of government.
but I’m not talking about legalities, but the source of rights.
Well, I like the pledge myself. And a person can speak about faith in a personal context, not in an official governmental context. I don’t mind a Supreme Court Justice having faith, but that faith had best not be the justification for a ruling. I’d like to keep that to the law.
No scientific theory has been conclusively proved - proof is not part of science. It is good to teach those hypotheses and theories that have been modified into newer, more accurate ones, and I think most science classes do that. However, that does not mean there are significant gaps - care to name some? (There are gaps, of course, and some gaps, like the lack of fossils, are expected and even support evolution.) Teaching that Darwin had no clue as to how traits were inherited is good. Teaching that ID is a valid alternative to evolution is not good, since it is not. There are plenty of ways of showing how science corrects itself without teaching religiously based stuff. Actually, teaching why ID is not a valid scientific theory would be cool, but probably too confrontational.
I do not think that you are holding out for Christian values, but every time we find a problem with mixing government and religion, it seems to be Christians who are doing the mixing. Making vague arguments for some hypothetical state might be valid in a hypothetical world, but the reason for separating Church and State is practical, not hypothetical or theoretical, and the reality is that, with a very large Christian majority in this country, it always comes down to a desire on the part of some number of Christians to impose their beliefs on the the entire population.
Your first examples were classic in that regard: twisting a secular Pledge of Allegiance to one that identifies a theistic being as having power or authority above the state; adding a theistic claim of “trust” to our money.
You have since regretted those examples appearing in the thread, yet you have provided no alternative acts that would legitimately involve dragging God into the execution of government.
This is all vague enough to be vaguely true–or to be nonsense.
Freedom has a definition and is a value that the nation aspires to.
God has rather more definitions and provides no common value to which the state should aspire.
I value my Christian belief in God too much to hand it over to nebulous platitudes that are either meaningless in their generality or specific enough to give offense to a fellow citizen who does not share the same beliefs.
Appealing to the founders (who had widely divergent views of the deity) and their predecessor Enlightenment thinkers (who had similar widely varying views) in order to pretend that there is some strong common current of belief looks a lot like gathering many strings of thought and torturing them into a shape that they do not actually possess. The idea that Hobbes, Hume, Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau all followed some common notion of the divine is simply not supportable. The idea that Jefferson and Adams held the same views of God are equally invalid.
Here we go again. 
First, whether Hobbes, Hume, Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau, etc. all followed some common notion of the divine is immaterial. Yes, they were some of the thinkers that influenced the founders, but there were others, as well, and ALL were put through the Founders’ own filters. True Adams, Jefferson, and other Founders did not hold identical views regarding god and religion, but there was much that they agreed on: they were all theists; they were all monotheists; they believed that there was a Grand Architect/Creator; and they believed in an afterlife.
Let me ask you this: If we found a document, possibly more notes from the Convention, that showed—unequivocally—that the Founders were unanimously of the mind that the limits on reigion expressed in the First Amendment were simply to stop one Christian sect from becoming too dominant, or that the wording was intended to protect religious beliefs and NOT atheism, do you think their clear explanation of their own words should take presence over any latter day interpretation?
Your challenge is met.
Yeah, the mix is often bad. I often grew up resenting the very Christian majority push that you allude to. I feel a lot of Christians I speak to miss the point of being Christian just as a lot of Republicans [or Democrats for that matter] miss the point of their particular subscription and they don’t make it better for the rest of us. However, I wonder if there isn’t something we are throwing out with all of this which we shouldn’t. So I probably cannot invoke places where theistic values may belong in government. I brought up the “classic” examples in particular because those who believe in God don’t tend to object as vociferously to invoking that word or term. Even if Jefferson and Adams held different religious/theistic views, I am sure they both came together in that they both swore by God. The notion of the divine does not have to be common except inasmuch as those who are down commonly believe that there is such a thing. I dont care if it is triune, omni, seven-sided or what. There is a divine, and you and I have this in common even if I am not Christian.
Nor do I advocate nebulous platitudes. But when I see the lack of moral restraint in this country, particular in times of dire need, I think something that isnt or shouldnt be nebulous is… missing. And with folks getting uppity about the word God appearing on government property, we are being pushed even farther from it.
So things like the pledge and such have been referred to as “errors” but I do not see it as advocating a particular establishment at all. I see it making room for Hobbes, Hume, Locke, Voltaire, and Rousseau’s own personal beliefs,… and the even more diverse beliefs held today.
What “lack of moral restraint”?
What are you talking about?
What in the world makes you think that more religion will make people more moral ? Everywhere I turn, I see religion promoting and excusing stupidity, suffering and evil. I see no evidence it is any good at promoting moral behavior.
I’d say atheists opt out of a certain aspect of the national character, just as anti-capitalists and freedom-haters do.
The constitution prevented that character from taking on a tangible form in alliance with one protestant establishment.
So an official cannot say he is making a certain decision or taking a certain action because he believes it is right?
Theories get upgraded to laws when they’re held to be conclusive. Proof by way of generating reproducible results certainly is a part of science. As you well know if you’ve read, I think ID is balls-out stupid. I have never advocated teaching religiously-based stuff. I’d agree that teaching down ID would be cool. And there should be no such thing as “too confrontational” in science education. “Teach the controversy” has become a well-known approach to this, though I’m not sure how it is applied. I dont think it’s a good idea to lend ID any credence as science.
So,
freedom-hater=anti-capitalist=atheist
Ahh were all God hatin’ commies if we disagree with you?
I would characterize American consumption as a display of lacking moral restraint. I would characterize certain happenings in the gulf as displaying a lack of moral restraint. Those are two quick ones. I dont want to get bogged down in those on this thread, feel free to start another thread if you like.
Get this. I’m not talking about religion. But since you are I’ll answer you there anyway. If you do not see religion promoting moral behavior, you aren’t paying attention. It isn’t perfect at doing this and dogma often twists the message. But if the message is love, or honoring your ancestors, or upholding virtue, eschewing sin and whatnot… how are those not promoting moral behavior? Then there’s charity. Do you require a list of religious charitable institutions?
But to get back to what I am actually talking about, faith in divinity serves for many as a foundation of right conduct. Faithlessness begets faithlessness. If you assert God is a monster [as you have already said] then you must think less of your fellow man than somebody who believes God is love would feel of the same.