|
|
|
|
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/15/2006 8:07:15 AM | Religion in the Public Schools
It is important to bear in mind that this issue is extremely complex. Decision makers must address many competing demands, invariably looking to balance the twin constitutional mandates of separation of church and state and the right to freely exercise religion. They must include in their thinking the needs and rights of both the religious and the non-religious. Furthermore, decision makers must strive towards a vision of a pluralistic America that is open and welcoming to all groups, including religious minorities.
Is it constitutional to teach about religion in public schools?
Yes. In the 1960s school-prayer cases (that prompted rulings against state-sponsored school
prayer and Bible reading), the U.S. Supreme Court indicated that public school education
may include teaching about religion. In Abington v. Schempp, Associate Justice Tom Clark
wrote for the Court:
"It might well be said that one’s education is not complete without a study of
comparative religion or the history of religion and its relationship to the
advancement of civilization. It certainly may be said that the Bible is worthy of study
for its literary and historic qualities. Nothing we have said here indicates that such
study of the Bible or of religion, when presented objectively as part of a secular
program of education, may not be effected consistently with the First Amendment."
NOTE:
Supreme Court indicated that public school education may include teaching about religion. It is like you can teach about the Greek Myths, you can not however ask your students to accept and worship Zeus. | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/15/2006 8:13:00 AM | Why do so many non-Americans know Aamerican law beter than the Aamericans?
Two clauses in the First Amendment guarantee freedom of religion. The establishment clause prohibits the government from passing legislation to establish an official religion or preferring one religion over another. It enforces the "separation of church and state."
The free exercise clause prohibits the government, in most instances, from interfering with a persons practice of their religion.
This makes no mention of preventing the teaching of religion, in fact it states that as no religion is prefered over another, all religions and religious viewpoints are given equal status.
The law dose not prevent religion being taught in school, only religion being taught as science. | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/18/2006 10:43:38 AM |
I couldnt even begin to go through every post in this thread, its way too long. Anyhow, evolution is a THEORY. It's never been proven to be fact.
Creation...well there is more evidence of it if you just look around. Things of the earth did not just magically appear out of nowhere with such vast design without divine intervention. That is just not logical.
"If a faithful account was rendered of Man's ideas upon Divinity, he would be obliged to acknowledge, that for the most part the word "gods" has been used to express the concealed, remote, unknown causes of the effects he witnessed; that he applies this term when the spring of the natural, the source of known causes, ceases to be visible: as soon as he loses the thread of these causes, or as soon as his mind can no longer follow the chain, he solves the difficulty, terminates his research, by ascribing it to his gods... When, therefore, he ascribes to his gods the production of some phenomenon... does he, in fact, do any thing more than substitute for the darkness of his own mind, a sound to which he has been accustomed to listen with reverential awe?"
- Holbach | |
|
Enryk
|
Joined: 12/15/2005
Msg: 3479 | |
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/26/2006 3:05:23 AM | Just to shake the waters a bit... To show that Science keeps working.
from Nature
...................................................................................................................
Published online: 23 February 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060220-16
Jurassic beaver swims into view
Large early mammal was first to get furry.
Michael Hopkin
As a Jurassic predator, it was hardly in the big league. But compared with the shrew-like stature of the earliest mammals, it was a fearsome giant.
Meet the Jurassic 'beaver' from China. Living 164 million years ago, it's the oldest known furry member of the mammal family, and the first known to master swimming.
The specimen, described in Science this week1, was found by palaeontologists trawling the collections of the Jinzhou Museum of Palaeontology in China. Zhexi-Luo, of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and his team christened the creature Castorocauda lutrasimilis, meaning beaver-tailed and otter-like.
Like today's river otter, C. lutrasimilis probably lived in a burrow and hunted fish. And, a bit like a modern beaver, it sported a broad, flat, scaly tail.
At almost half a metre long, the animal is the biggest-known mammal-like creature of its time, and shows a hitherto unsuspected diversity in the shapes and sizes of the earliest mammals.
C. lutrasimilis would have been dwarfed by the giant reptiles that lived alongside it - but, says Luo, its burrowing lifestyle probably kept it safe.
Lifestyle choice
The discovery shows that early mammals and their relatives were experimenting with different lifestyles from the start, rather than waiting for the decline of the dinosaurs before diversifying.
Many of the early mammals were small and ate insects. But obviously not all of them. "A new picture is emerging, that at the earliest opportunity mammals started exploring new niches," says Luo.
It also shows that fur was crucial at the outset of mammals' evolution, Luo adds. "Fur is at the heart of our biology - it's important to keep us warm, and sweat glands [for keeping cool] are associated with hairs."
Early days
C. lutrasimilis was a close evolutionary cousin of the group that ultimately gave rise to all of today's mammals, explains Luo. But this branch of the mammalian family tree has since died out.
The evolutionary history of mammals is a long and complex one. The earliest mammals evolved from primitive terrestrial reptiles called therapsids, which lived some 200 million years ago. Since then they have diversified into the more than 5,000 species alive today.
Over the years, several types of mammals have taken to the sea. C. lutrasimilis may have been the first, learning to swim and taking to the waters many tens of millions of years before the rise of the group that left the land entirely to become whales and dolphins.
..........................................................................................
I dont like when people say "the first" (to appear or do something...)
Why cannot they say "the earliest example we know about" or so? | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/26/2006 6:34:54 PM |
Msg 3489
Thanks, Enryk. Really interesting. On a similar note, but more in keeping with Charlie's question, has anyone read anything about the Mimivirus discovery? | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/27/2006 9:01:32 AM | Well Feral, seems that they really don't know much yet.
Mimivirus’ unique nature may hold some key to the evolution of singe-celled
organisms three billion years ago. Although it will likely take time to
generate any consensus for it, the researchers advocate a fourth branch of
life for mimivirus, and any other giant viruses that may turn up.
But looks like science will once more have to redefine a few things.
Wow! a fourth type of life. | |
|
Enryk
|
Joined: 12/15/2005
Msg: 3482 | |
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/27/2006 3:52:18 PM | Hi,
Well the Mimivirus...
Nice that you mention it. Yes, I remember those years (2003) and we thought we knew "large" DNA viruses but the Mimivirus is on a different level, large beast. Yes.
There is a paper which came out last week about it, redrawing the phylogenetic tree of the NCLDVs (short for large nuclear and cytoplasmic DNA viruses). To make the story short (because I haven't read it yet) so it seems NOT to be any need to call for a fourth branch of anything. The NCLDVs comprise the poxviruses, asfarviruses, iridoviruses, and phycodnaviruses (which we already knew) and the recently added mimiviruses.
Apparently the whole family started to diverge before the different eukaryotic lineages did and started acquiring MANY genes from their hosts, which eventually gained new functions.
Let me finish reading the other 15 papers on my list for tomorrow and might get round to read
Iyer et al., Virus Research (2006) in press... 29 pages... which in contrast to what creationists read, it is full of facts and actual information... ouch...
On a somehow related note, some people are proposing a very neat idea:
in which the primigenial cells had RNA as genetic material (no news there)
but that probably it was the viruses which developed DNA as a way of survival within the cell. Eventually some kind of symbiosis enabled some virus/cell structures to propagate in an efficient way. If that idea is correct, to the creationists horror, we are not only descendant from apes, but from viruses TOO!!!!
 | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/27/2006 4:54:21 PM | i think that if you actually read the answers to this thread. rather than making statements based on assumption. you will find that the saying is true. its better to be thought a fool. rather than open your mouth and prove it. lol. | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/27/2006 5:00:31 PM | heres one for your cap. if you think that there is a man on this earth that is smarter than the wisdom of God. well you must. cause you are asking a question that only its creator can answer. i mean the creator of the evolution mystery. God said that he would send a strong dilussion to keep the people that wont turn, from ever turning. that sound like the answer. but only God can say for certain | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/27/2006 5:07:51 PM | Why is this tread still going on? The bottom line is that the only way to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that humans evolved is to go back in time (impossible some say) and actually watch it. And the only way to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we were made by god is to either
A) Have God come down and tell us on international television
or
B) Go back in time and say Hi to Adam and Eve.
Since the likely hood of any of these events is next to 0, then it stands to reason that you guys can argue this until your fingers bleed and it's not going to be proven 100% conclusively.
You can, however, argue what most likely happened, but you know what? Noone is going to be convinced of the other even with nearly undeniable proof. | |
|
Enryk
|
Joined: 12/15/2005
Msg: 3486 | |
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/28/2006 1:28:03 AM | To keypeng in check
You said
"i mean the creator of the evolution mystery. God said that he would send a strong dilussion to keep the people that wont turn, from ever turning. that sound like the answer"
Who told you, you understand GOD, who told you, YOU have spoken to The Guy.
In a 3000 year old book can be many many many editions, you know, even IF the Book was Dictated by That Chap. Keep praying man, that is YOUR only way forward. Meanwhile we work.
(and for me that is a massive big if, considering that the Bible was assembled from Babylonian tales, from Genesis all the way down to Moses, Diluvium, Sodom and that the guy called David was apparently a blood-ruthless dictator who dedicated a few people to write a good HISTORY book for him, but that is another thread). | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/28/2006 9:48:13 AM | Well,
I certainly cannot go back and read all of the numerous posts, so I'm going to sum up my angle on all of this briefly and I apoligize if it's been stated already.
I recently read, "The Big Bang: Origin of the Universe" by Simon Singh. If anyone hasn't read it, I recommend you do. It shed some light onto many things I had been wondering about concerning scientific developments and some aspects of religion.
My personal belief, however ridiculous it may seem to you, is that both creation and evolution can exist together. Evolution explains how life evolved from a primordial soup into the living creatures that you and I see today. It is also my understanding that it does not explain how that first primordial soup of life came into existence in the first place. The Big Bang Theory explains how the universe is what it is today, but it does not explain what happened just before the rapid expansion of matter. Yes, science may someday provide more theories to explain both of these questions, but isn't it possible that a higher being lit the fuse or pressed the play button to get things going?
Can science explain how life, even in the most primitive sense of the word, came to be?
It seems to me that until you can provide answers to all the questions plaguing evolution, it remains a theory. Just as intelligent design remains a theory for the same reasons.
I am all about the advancement of science and the discoveries it brings, but it seems to me there's a point where scientists have to suck it up and say, "You know, we can't prove there is no God, we can't answer all the questions, so even though we don't believe in it, we allow that until we have that proof, a God may exist." The Catholic Church was able to admit their mistakes and pardon those they had previously condemned, why does science insist on being as stubborn as the Church once was?
Take Care,
Irish | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/28/2006 10:43:09 AM |
"You know, we can't prove there is no God, we can't answer all the questions, so even though we don't believe in it, we allow that until we have that proof, a God may exist."
Well that is what most scientists would say. It is only the religious types who say that the sciences deny God. In the end both science and religion will end up in the same place. | |
|
Enryk
|
Joined: 12/15/2005
Msg: 3489 | |
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/28/2006 10:49:11 AM | "I've got nothing against God.
It's his fanclub I can't stand" | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/28/2006 10:53:22 AM | Trewq36,
To be fair, I think that there are scientists and religious who would say that science denies God and that religion denies science.
It is not only the religious types that say science denies God.
And my original post was to suggest that religion, at least Catholicism, has already conceded that Evolution has some truth in it and should not be simply discarded. The Catholic Church eagerly awaits the discoveries that science will bring us. The only catch is that the Church believes that just because Evolution may in fact be the truth, it doesn't mean that God didn't set things up that way, start things in motion, etc.
I look forward to the day when science and religion alike will work together to solve the mysteries of our existence.
Take Care,
Irish | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/28/2006 10:55:48 AM | Enryk,
Surely we can see eye to eye on this one! Hehe, no pun intended.
Some of the religious fanatics can be hard to deal with or to even not deal with. But just as Catholics persevere through being called cannibals, so can science persevere despite the claims that they are going to Hell for their "false evidence".
Hopefully you don't think all of God's fanclub is bad?
Take Care,
Irish | |
|
Enryk
|
Joined: 12/15/2005
Msg: 3492 | |
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/28/2006 3:03:00 PM | haha
Religion has nothing to do with what it is bad or good, although some make think it does.
Religion is about sets of predictated values, morals and beliefs.
(and this is where I bring discussion back into subject)
while Science is about compiling evidence and testing hypothesis.
Again
“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s”
Sorry, I am not revolutionary enough to see Science and Religion walking hand in hand. | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/28/2006 3:07:37 PM | Enryk,
I'm merely speaking of possibilities. I claim to have no definitive answer as you should do the same.
Take Care,
Irish | |
|
Enryk
|
Joined: 12/15/2005
Msg: 3494 | |
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/28/2006 4:12:37 PM | Ah I see... I agree that the ultimate answer is probably out of reach in my lifetime, yes, albeit that on the Science front we keep plodding on!
(and let's stop the conversation or the ID axe will come and close this thread) | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 2/28/2006 7:30:31 PM | The comedy of this idea is the necessity that people seem to have to have everything one way or the other! Of course there is evolution. Evolution is scientific reality and many examples are available. There may have been Creation! But since Creation includes a necessity of some form of intelligent design, and because so many people have so many different ideas about this Creation notion, it's hardly possible to be taught in a public school.
Which notion are you going to choose. The woman standing on a turtle, and the turtles go all the way down! Do we believe in one of the many Christian versions, or the Native American versions. How about the Muslim version, or the Jewish version. How about the Hindu faith, or just some nutcase with his own ideas!
Creation is taught in "Churches" because of the necessity to have "Faith". Spiritual beliefs are in the realm of faith, not scientific knowledge. Science has enough trouble with the understanding of all things, and the understanding scientists have is often changed due to new knowledge.
Neither science or faith is perfect. But there has been both Evolution and I choose to believe Intelligent design in the form of "God" to Create or Organize what we all see in our lives. No one has to believe what I believe, but I choose to attend a church which is a group of people that "believe" the way that I believe, generally speaking. | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 3/1/2006 8:56:37 AM | Widow96,
I just find it hard to say, "Creation should not be taught in schools." When I was taught about aliens, black holes(which exists obviously, but we don't know much about), dark matter, and time travel.
It seems that if we're going to only teach things which we have a fair amount of proof for, then we need to be doing it across the board, to Hell(pun intended) with the double standards!
Take Care,
Irish | |
|
Enryk
|
Joined: 12/15/2005
Msg: 3497 | |
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 3/1/2006 10:49:51 AM | Could we agree at this point that in SCIENCE class
you should only be taught what has been learned
by using the Scientific Method????
We are getting somewhere! | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 3/1/2006 11:02:04 AM | First Enryk & Irishgent, could one of you change your picture. That ^^^^ is just too strange, with those eyes scrolling up the page!
Meanwhile back at the ranch....Widow and others,
None (well, not many) have denied that it is good to learn about religion and understand ones faith. Where the problems arise is (are?) two fold.
One, whose story do you teach? I like the one where the Universe is the result of God's sneeze and we should fear the coming of the great hanky. Which leads us back to Irishgent's call for Balance, as the only fair solution is to teach them all.
And Two, ID is NOT science and as such should be left to classes/places/groups where Faith issues are taught (i.e. ^ point number one). | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 3/1/2006 1:44:21 PM | Trewq36,
I like my picture, so it's a no go from my end. Sorry!
Creation is one theory that explains how the world started. It's not your typical science, but if you found out it was the truth, wouldn't you then teach it in a science class? I'm not asking for much, just a few sentences saying it's a theory.
I truly do believe balance is key. But you don't have to teach them all specifically, it would suffice to say that many hold the theory that a supreme being created the world. You don't have to go into details saying that it was a sneeze(though I don't believe God could sneeze, hehe) or a fart or anything else for that matter. Just say that it's possible a higher power put the world in order as you see it today.
Take Care,
Irish | |
|
| Creation vs Evolution
Posted: 3/1/2006 1:49:18 PM | PassportCharlie,
I mean no offense when I say this, but I didn't exactly catch what you were saying. Did you mean that I was off-topic considering the original post was themed around whether schools can teach creation and evolution?
If that's the case, I don't think I was exactly.
I brought up a few instances of science that are taught in the classroom to justify why I thought Creation had a place in the classroom. Ex: You can prove no more to me that Dark Matter exists than I can prove to you that God exists. So if you're going to teach one, then you have to be willing to teach the other since they are both at least as sound as the other.
Take Care,
Irish | |
|
|
| Page 140 of 156
|
116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156 |
|
Home
login 
