what many creationists think of science and the public education system

Great Debates
41

I did read my cite and I agree with it. Obviously you don’t share my enthusiasm. This topic is a bunch of baloney put forth by the op to get people going against each other.

What about the OP’s trying to incite trouble by quoting what her parents would never say in public.? The world belongs to the devil? Come on, I have never in my life heard that in a classroom!

I am not mentally retarded. That is a very mean thing to say to me. You obviously care about hyperbole more then couth! So because I link a Genesis site I am mentally retarded? Because I have faith and an open mind you can’t handle it. I said I studied all the types of creationism in school and I liked the variety. We still can’t prove any of them but someday we may.

I wish we could meet half way on this. I am not for violating our constitution and if it is such a big deal why don’t they remove Genesis from public school? Most Christians send their kids to private school anyway. If you are so dead set against Genesis call your congressman and get it removed from any curriculum in public schools. I am a Christian so if you think your going to change my mind on this subject you are wasting your time and mine.

I think Genesis teaches children a lot more about faith and hope then exploding rocks in space.

I kindly ask the moderator to move this thread to the pit where it belongs. I have never seen anyone on SD call anyone mentally retarded. The Pit is where people like you need to go with your hatred and mean words.

42

Genesis usually isn’t taught in public schools.

That’s not even close to true.

43

What did the OP quote? Something her parents said? Look I get it, this is a set up. I thought I could add my two cents but you are like rabid dogs at my heels.

I would never treat an Atheist with the disrespect I have taken. It’s Ok though because you are a minority in the world but a majority on SD. You scream the loudest. We can’t ever have a Christians point of view because you will squelch it. Go ahead I can take it but I will not take being called names above the pit. Go down there and call me all the names you want.

I’m going to pray for religious tolerance on these boards. I like all of you very much and this has gotten ugly. I will try and not stand up for my beliefs as much and avoid set ups.

Pax~

44

I’ll consider it, but I don’t think you’ll like the responses you get if I move it there. Be careful what you wish for.

You’re new here. And you’ll notice he got a warning for it.

You have to follow the rules here even if another poster insulted you. That means you’re not supposed to make personal remarks about other posters either: that includes this quoted line and comments like “Because I have faith and an open mind you can’t handle it.” and “you are like rabid dogs at my heels.”

45

And here comes the standard Christian “help I’m being oppressed” line. People disagreeing with you, pointing out where you are wrong and asking for evidence is not religious intolerance.

46

Mind addressing my thought experiment from post #36 first?

47

Wait, are you asserting that the OP is making this position up? And that the other posters claiming personal experience with the breed are pretending as well? That no christians anywhere think the world belongs to the devil?

That’s quite the claim, isn’t it? Internet conspiracy! As if we’re so short of things to shake our heads at christians about that we have to make them up.

Of course, you’re also claiming that Genesis is taught in public schools, so…

I’ll bite - which part of Genesis is hopeful? Remember, it’s not the new testament; God’s the unforgiving vengeful jealous type here.

48

I went to middle class suburban public schools and I can’t even imagine what they’d teach about evolution, nor can I Google because it just tells me about all those lovely court trials and general controversy. My schools taught us about cells, DNA, genetics, biospheres, organ systems, and sometimes specific animals (this week let’s talk about jellyfish! Next week we cut open a frog, etc.).

What would middle-high school level evolution education look like? Anything about Darwin himself and the development of the idea over the last 150 years? A general history of the evolution of man in particular? Allopatric speciation? Molecular clocks? Sexual strategies? Phylogenetics? How deep does it go? I’m honestly curious what I missed out on.

49

If you covered all those topics without discussing evolution, then you didn’t really cover any of those topics. Nothing in biology makes any sense outside of the context of evolution.

50

It makes sense to me. Seriously, I don’t have to know the evolutionary history of a lung to know that it absorbs oxygen from the air into the bloodstream.

Come to think of it, I don’t know the evolutionary history of lungs…

51

Sounds more like Gnosticism than Christianity.

52

Cyningablod, your falling into the very common trap of creating a decieving juxtaposition. Your taking somthing that athiests don’t believe “The world belongs to the Devil”, and quite naturally expecting the ridicule of it when aligning it with christians, a group of whom atheists are already pre-disposed to ridicule.

Now unfortunately I have to more or less parrot the widely-used christian retort of, ‘you have taken that out of context.’ Now, as I’m sure many of you will not hesitate in telling me, your sick of hearing this. But, don’t feel too bad, because I’m sick of saying it, so the feeling is mutual.

Now when you said, “The way a large number of creationists interpret all this, the way they make sense…” you left out the fact that while the large body of creationists believe your quoted statement, “The world belongs to the Devil”, they don’t simply say that and leave it be. Creationist scientists have done plenty of their own research which they will say backs up their belief, so to act like that statment is the pillar of creationist reasoning is really quite absurd.

Yet, as to pertains to legal educational matters, I would certainly say that creationists have no right to be the only view taught in schools, just as much as I would say that evolution has no right to be the only view taught. Although this will begin to lead into my view, of which most would claim extreme, that there should be no state run education, so if you(or anyone for that matter) would like to disagree with that idea let me know.

But I mention this education related opinion of mine to show that it shouldn’t be legal to universally teach one seperate side of an issue, especially one that clearly divides the nation. I know that atheists love their science, oweing to the general concept that it only contains ‘Fact’, yet this is unfortunately untrue. I am not denying the existence of the truth of science, but am simply stating that, for better or for worse, fact only becomes so by an agreeance of all parties that it is so. And the simple fact is, our country doesn’t agree, which is why we creationists are in an uproar about a state funded worldview. Like I said, athiests claim that their worldview is fact, yet they fail to see its just as much a state funded ‘fact’ as Noah’s Ark was a state funded fact 100 years ago.

Now the reverse claim to this I’m sure will be that times have changed, and everyone knows evolution to be the truth now. Yet I feel I must mention, somthing that athiests are slow to admit, your guys are the minority here on planet earth, and more specifically, USA. Statisticly, roughly 85% of Americans are Christians, which of course is a bit off, but it is clear that majority of Americans don’t downright believe in the Theory of Evolution.

53

Actually, I rather doubt he expected an actual Creationist to show up. There aren’t many on the boards. He probably didn’t expect anything other than a solid round of support and agreement.

No one ever claimed it was said in a classroom.

Really? All types of Creationism? Even the one about people being trapped in a clam? Man, that’s a lot of Creationism. When did you have time to learn anything else?

You’re right about one thing, though. We can’t prove any of them. In fact, pretty much all of them, if taken literally, rely on fundamental contradictions with established science. Which is one of the main reasons we should only be teaching evolution, and not one of the hundreds (if not thousands) of mutually incompatible creation myths which have absolutely no scientific support. Such as the book of Genesis.

They have. Quite some time ago. It’s against the law to teach the book of Genesis (or any other religious text) as fact in a public school: it’s a violation of the first amendment to the Constitution.

No, they don’t.

I don’t know that that’s something to brag about.

I’m sure that it does. Which is why it’s a great thing to teach in Sunday school. But science classes don’t exist to teach kids about faith and hope. They’re supposed to teach kids about science.

We can consider that request, but keep in mind: this is one of the Pit moderators.

54

  1. “Trying to incite trouble?” FYI, I originally posted this in MPSIMS. A mod moved it here, based on the course the discussion was taking, but not because of my OP. I wasn’t trying to incite anyone to anything. Just sharing an observation.

  2. I’m a guy, not a girl. But I can see how the Anglo-Saxon screen-name might have confused you. Either way, because of my love and respect for women, I’ll take the mistake as a compliment. :slight_smile:

  3. It seems you didn’t read my OP very carefully: I NEVER said that anyone says, “The world belongs to the devil” in a classroom. Quite the opposite, in fact: I said that it’s what some creationists say, in private, about their losses in the educational, legal, and scholarly forums.

Regarding the “mentally retarded” comment: A mod has already taken Nicolas to task for that. I’m sure you’ve seen it by now.

55

You’re falling into a trap of your own: you’re confusing “Christian” with “Creationist.” The single largest Christian denomination in the world, the Catholic Church, has no problem reconciling evolution with their faith in Christ.

That’s not what he’s saying. He’s offering that as an underlying philosophy to explain the consistent and deliberate rejection of independently verifiable fact by Creationists in favor of their religious dogma. The evidence in favor of evolution is overwhelming and almost entirely airtight. To someone not already indoctrinated in Creationism, it’s mindboggling that one could so blithely overlook this mountain of facts and evidence all pointing towards evolution as the mechanism by which species arise. Per the OP, the reason for this is “the world belongs to the Devil.” We are, of course, well aware that there are additional justifications beyond that, but he’s arguing that this is the bedrock assumption on which those justifications have been constructed.

Well, that’s certainly an… interesting idea. But not really germane to this topic. But you misunderstand the reason evolution is illegal to teach in schools. It’s really got nothing (directly) to do with “only teaching one viewpoint.” It’s got to do with the first amendment to the Constitution. The government cannot be in the business of promoting a religion. Therefore, it is illegal to teach Creationism in schools, because Creationism is a religious dogma. Evolution is not a religious dogma. It’s a biological mechanism, whose existence is irrefutably established by physical evidence, and laboratory testing. It is not a philosophical viewpoint, it’s a description of the physical world.

Why not?

Personally, I’m a fan of science because of it’s demonstrated utility. Thanks to science, I can type on the internet, drive my car, play video games on my cell phone, and not be dead from gall stones. I can see that science actually does stuff, and produces results. Religion? It makes some people happy, and that’s certainly valuable, but aside from a few rather nice aesthetics, I haven’t ever derived much personal benefit from religion.

I can’t say I agree with you there. A fact is a fact, regardless of who knows it. What evolves (heh) is our understanding of the facts, which is never going to be perfect. The problem comes when you have two competing understanding of what the facts are. How do you resolve which is most correct? Perhaps if we had some system of evaluating information, testing it, and establishing which view of the facts is most accurate? Oh, wait. We do. It’s called science.

There’s that trap again. 85% of the US may be Christian, but that doesn’t mean that 85% of the US is Creationist. Remember, Christian does not equal Creationist. A recent survey found that 55% of Americans don’t believe in evolution. Still a majority, sure, but not nearly as one sided as you would have us believe. And the high level of support for Creationism in the US is an anomaly among Western nations. Creationism gets very little play in Europe or Asia. Globally speaking, the Christian brand of creationism is a pretty small minority.

I understand Creationism is much more popular among Muslims, though. So, you got that going for you.

56

  1. I quoted something that my parents, grandparents, Sunday school teachers, fellow Christians (when I was one), and many others have said. But I don’t see how who exactly my “source” is, is relevant, anyway.

  2. I’m a guy. Don’t know why you think I’m not. Oh well, no matter. :dubious:

  3. How have I been a “rabid dog at your heels”? I’ve been nothing but respectful. And as you can tell from my OP, I was not directing it at creationists, anyway; I was talking to other pro-science folks. I assure you, there is no “set up” going on here.

FWIW, P, I tolerate you just fine. And this is “my” thread. I think you’ll agree that I haven’t been aggressive or intolerant or insulting in the slightest. I’ve consistently spoken to you respectfully, even when expressing disagreement.

I as a former devout Christian know you’re being sincere when you say that you’ll pray for us, but in case you haven’t figured it out by now, most skeptics just find the I’ll-pray-for-you line to be very very annoying. In fact, it’s actually a veiled insult, even if you don’t realize it or intend it that way. It amounts to: “You disagree with me because there’s something spiritually wrong with you. So I’ll pray for you.”

Pax to you, as well.

57

LOVE that pic! I need some devil horns, too… :slight_smile:

58

Thanks for the wonderful post. She is beyond this reality. There are more of these children. A young 6-year-old pianist that will play at Carnegie Hall.

These children are sometimes called Indigo children. They are beyond understanding by science or religion. They just “are.”

59

“…It’s taking longer than we thought.”

60

  1. Is English your native language?

  2. On what basis are you implicitly distinguishing “fact” from “truth”?