Do you also believe that evolution should be taught in school and theism should have no place in the government of the United States? If so, please convert people to this form of Christianity. Then I could live in peace alongside my thesitic counterparts.

There was a christian club in my high school called Pete's Place.

They were sort of nice, except that time some girls from it tried to trick my friends into eating free jell-o and only later they realized they were stuck in a portable with a bunch of people trying to convert them. Imagine 2 cute sorta punky 16 year old girls with mouths full of jell-o and a slightly panicked look in their eyes.

Most of them were very non-confrontational, but quietly judgemental. Very sneery. I ended up working my ****ty retail job years later with one of the girls who was in it. She's pretty cool, other than having a mind virus(Yay, I can be judgemental too, LOL).

But to say prayer, god, bibles are not allowed in school is silly. There was a Wiccan club, a Christian club, a Magic the Gathering club, a Salmon Club, a First Nations club. There was pretty much a club for everything. They used to pray around the flagpole before class. Maybe some schools ban any and all clubs, but I doubt that highly.

[MOD EDIT - removed swear word] 

Glamor that's really sad that they'd have to use deception to force others into a conversion session.  I've seen this at tons of churches and what nots and I can't stand that brand of Christanity.  No person can EVER reveal God to someone.  God reveals himself to that person and this person will seek God out by going to a church or whatever.  This in your face approach comes off as hostile and anything with the slightest sense of hate will only cause hatred in return.

Yes there are clubs at school but it is not educators teaching it when school is in session.  I personally believe that high school students can and should be taught creationism but at the same time have evolution waiting in the wings as part of the same class.  You want to remove bias it's almost about the only way to do it - teach both or none at all.

But creationism isn't a science. That's the thing. Teachers are required to at least mention that religious people often reject evolution (not like they really need to) and that creationism is an alternative, but the fact is that evolution is a fact. I don't want my kids learning anything but facts in school. Should we have kids learn the Flat Earth Society's point of view as well? What about the alternative religious "origin" stories? One that varies heavily from the Abrahamic story is the Jainist view, which teaches a cyclical universe that destroys itself and is rebuilt with only a few (the Jainists) knowing of it. Should that be taught as well, to eliminate bias?

Well, since evolution is based on science, it should be taught as such. Since Creationism is a religion, if it's to be taught (and I don't think it should be) it should be taught in a Humanities type class, as a religious idea, rather than theory or fact. However, I'll pose the question again: Why not teach the Jainist view too? Or perhaps the Taoist view, that everything comes from the Tao, which isn't a sentient being but is all around us, is immortal, and created us some time ago? I'd think that if you wish to teach one religion's creation story for the sake of balance, you should teach all of them. And that just might take too much time, if it were to also be taught next to an extensive and complex theory like evolution.

Ah yes of course and science is never wrong.  You know I hate to say this but you sound just as bad as other theists who scream "Creation is correct because we said so".  

As to the point you made about other religions, why not?  Thing i, which are the big two completing ideas?  Why wouldn't it be about what the biggest belief is (God) and its opposite (evolution) and present both sides as to our beginnings.  Let the student have available both sides.

My point has been from the beginning, if you do not want to teach both, teach neither. 

That's what I've been saying however I'm saying the same thing for evolution.  Because people cannot agree if that's even a science (the proof can be disputed but again that is not the purpose of this thread so please don't try going there), this is why they both belong as a humanities class.  If you don't agree then I would not support teaching either in any classroom of public schools.  Leave it for college and allow the education of public schools to be classical in nature.

As to your flat/round Earth analogy, aren't they being taught now?  They are both presented in schools so students can understand both points of view but the round will always win because we've already physically proved it wrong.

See, I'm all for teaching religion in schools. But I want Christianity on an even keel with all the other religions. Creationism is not "the opposite" of evolution or big bang theory. It's more like someone waiting in the wings in the theatre made up of every single creation story.

How would most people feel if they taught this story as fact in school? 

~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Pan Gu and Nü Wa

      Long, long ago, when heaven and earth were still one, the entire universe was contained in an egg-shaped cloud. All the matter of the universe swirled chaotically in that egg. Deep within the swirling matter was Pan Gu, a huge giant who grew in the chaos. For 18,000 years he developed and slept in the egg. Finally one day he awoke and stretched, and the egg broke to release the matter of the universe. The lighter purer elements drifted upwards to make the sky and heavens, and the heavier impure elements settled downwards to make the earth.

      In the midst of this new world, Pan Gu worried that heaven and earth might mix again; so he resolved to hold them apart, with the heavens on his head and the earth under his feet. As the two continued to separate, Pan Gu grew to hold them apart. For 18,000 years he continued to grow, until the heavens were 30,000 miles above the earth. For much longer he continued to hold the two apart, fearing the retun of the chaos of his youth. Finally he realized they were stable, and soon after that he died.

      With the immense giant's death, the earth took on new character. His arms and legs became the four directions and the moutains. His blood became the rivers, and his sweat became the rain and dew. His voice became the thunder, and his breath became the winds. His hair became the grass, and his veins became the roads and paths. His teeth and bones became the minerals and rocks, and his flesh became the soil of the fields. Up above, his left eye became the sun, and his right eye became the moon. Thus in death, as in life, Pan Gu made the world as it is today.

      Many centuries later, there was a goddess named Nü Wa who roamed this wild world that Pan Gu had left behind, and she became lonely in her solitude. Stopping by a pond to rest, she saw her reflection and realized that there was nothing like herself in the world. She resolved to make something like herself for company.

      From the edge of the pond she took some mud and shaped it in the form of a human being. At first her creation was lifeless, and she set it down. It took life as soon as it touched the soil, however, and soon the human was dancing and celebrating its new life. Pleased with her creation, Nü Wa made more of them, and soon her loneliness disappeared in the crowd of little humans around her. For two days she made them, and still she wanted to make more. Finaly she pulled down a long vine and dragged it through the mud, and then she swung the vine through the air. Droplets of mud flew everywhere and, when they fell, they became more humans that were nearly as perfect as the ones she had made by hand. Soon she had spread humans over the whole world. The ones she made by hand became the aristocrats, and the ones she made with the vine became the poor common people.

      Even then, Nü Wa realized that her work was incomplete, because as her creations died she would have to make more. She solved this problem by dividing the humans into male and female, so that they could reproduce and save her from having to make new humans to break her solitude.

      Many years later, Pan Gu's greatest fear came true. The heavens collapsed so that there were holes in the sky, and the earth cracked, letting water rush from below to flood the earth. At other places, fire sprang forth from the earth, and everywhere wild beasts emerged from the forests to prey on the people. Nü Wa drove the beasts back and healed the earth. To fix the sky, she took stones of many colors from the river and built a fire in which she melted them. She used the molten rock to patch the holes in the sky, and she used the four legs of a giant turtle to support the sky again. Exhausted by her labors, she soon lay down to die and, like Pan Gu, from her body came many more features to adorn the world that she had restored.

Jan Walls and Yvonne Walls (translators and editors), 1984, Classical Chinese Myths: Hong Kong, Joint Publishing Company, 135 p. (BL1825.C48 1984)  

Well, Origin of Species is like 200 years old, and I'm pretty sure we've come a ways from that. And plus, science is really the class they should be addressing evolution as it's SO ingrained in scientific techniques. It wouldn't make sense to teach evolution in a  humanities or history class. Most of the basic ideas require at least a basic science education. MAYBE if you taught a full semester of Science, and THEN the evolution unit in Humanities or whatever. It just makes more SENSE the way we have it now. It would be like teaching algebra in english class because there are letters in it.

At any rate, I wish he'd had a Comparative Religions course at my high school, though, I would DEFINATELY have taken it. 

P.S. It's spelled Glamour(I'm Canadian), or just Kat if you prefer, as Kat's my actual name. Thanks.

Well, the main difference is, evolution has a lot more evidence one can point to other than "because we said so."

As for science never being wrong, nobody claims it is, and if science finds something wrong with the theory of evolution, then the theory will change. While science cannot yet prove definitively that the creation story is wrong, many parts of the creation account HAVE been proven to be unequivocally false, yet creationists never alter their story.

Because, 1) they are not two "sides" to a story. Evolution offers no argument as to the origins of life. 2) By definition, there is nothing scientific about god or religion, and your belief that evolution belongs in a humanities class is the definition of asinine.

Complete nonsense, especially in light of the fact that apparently you dont even know what the theory of evolution says.

This is absolutely false. The only people that dont agree are theists that are ignorant, stubborn or scared. Period. That evolution is scientific is not even a DEBATE amongst any other types of people in the world.

This is nonsense, and this attitude is part of the reason why american kids continue to get dumber as products of our educational system. Over a hundred years of testing and re-testing. Countless pieces of evidence unearthed to back it up. Held up to scrutiny challenge after challenge. This(meaning the theory of evolution), razorphreak, is the very DEFINITION of science, and for you not to acknowledge that speaks volumes.

No, one is being taught(round), whereas the other(flat) is referenced as an example of how science continues to test theories and alters them as more facts become evident. It is also used as an example of what happens when theocratic leaders put adherence to dogma ahead of the pursuit of truth, and that's exactly what you're doing by discounting the firm foundation on which evolutionary theory stands.

 

razorphreak - I love you!  Really - I may not always agree with you but I love you.  This would be a great way to teach both concepts, except.....

(Warning:  I am not a science-type person)  The only problem I see is that evolution does not answer the question of the start of life.  Therefore, I do not think both theories can be taught side-by-side.  There are scientific hypotheses that address this and could be taught alongside creationism, but evolution isn't one of them.  As far as I know.  And I know very little about science.

 My point is that all viewpoints should be taught, my concern is that they be taught from an unbiased source.

I never said either of these, only that evolution IS a science, and that Creationism is not. As a science, evolution is taught as a theory (that is, hypothesis which fits all the facts and has been tested and retested enough to be to be considered true, given what we know) because it is one. Creationism in school would have to be taught as the religion it is, because it cannot, and has not, been tested as a science.

Ignoring the spelling errors, you have a few problems here. First off, most who adhere to religion have abandoned the idea of "Creationism being taught in schools" opting for either Intelligent Design (which is a more science-y pseudoscience than Creationism, though not by a whole lot) or just evolution. Next, Creationism is the opposite of evolution, truly, but it doesn't matter. Why is this? because, if we were to teach opposing views that have been proven wrong, we'd teach a lot more nonsense in our schools. We'd teach Holocaust Denial next to mainline World War 2 history, Armenian Genocide denial next to mainline World War 1 history, and Flat Earthism next to Round Earth theory. We'd teach that the Sun revolves around the Earth as well as the Earth revolving around the Sun, and next to our theory that viruses and bacteria cause disease, we'd teach that sin causes disease. We'd also teach alchemy next to chemistry. Just because the worldviews are opposite does not mean they are equal. Just because these are the 2 biggest beliefs does not mean that both, or either, are valid opinions.

Now, because people don't agree, does that make it true? Have you ever told a truth and had people believe it was a lie? Does having people not believe it make it a lie? Have you ever told a lie and had people believe it? Does their belief make your lie a truth? In other words, people not agreeing that evolution is fact does not make it not so. The fact that it has been tested (we see newer strains of bacteria and virus evolving very regularly, thus proving that it happens in nature, and we have fossil records to confirm that it has happened in larger things, thus it works in larger things as well. We've never had any legitimate disproof of evolution that can be tested or verified. When/if that happens, it must be tested AND verified before we can abandon evolution, and until we abandon evolution, there's no reason to teach anything else as equal to evolution. You guys already have the best you can hope for in a non-theocratic state, that is, biology teachers admitting that some people don't believe in evolution.

As for all religions being taught, fine. However, in high school, this is hardly feasible. One would have to create not one, but two very intense elective courses. One would be "religions we currently believe in" which would presumably cover the 22 major world beliefs that have other half a million adherents, including religious beliefs that aren't actually religions (like atheism, Juche and Unitarianism) but probably discounting Scientology since there's proof they are less than 500,000 in number despite their stated numbers. (Opponents of Scientology have shown that they are using dead Scientologists and ex-Scientologists to inflate their numbers). The other course would be "religions we don't believe in anymore" which would include some religions that people actually DO believe in, like Greek polytheism and Norse polytheism, as well as Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and various others. It would simply take far too much time to be fair to all of them.

Why would round win because it was proved wrong? Oh, wait, I see your point. However, the fact is that religious people would (and, in fact, are) angered when creationism is debunked in high school classes by evolutionists. If you are asking for them to both be taught, and realizing that the stronger view always wins, you're asking for exactly this. Now, of course, in the hands of a theistic teacher, evolution will lose due to a poor treatment. Likewise, atheists will not take creationism seriously, and it will often show. When taught equally by someone who understands both theories and is willing to give the one they disagree with a fair chance (and these people do exist), evolution would win. And the schools would be sued by enraged christian parents. This is a problem. Thus, as much as we'd both like Creationism to be taught next to evolution (you to attack evolution, me to destroy Creationism's fanbase) this would not end well, especially in the Bible Belt.

EDIT: You still haven't answered whether or not you believe God is not legally allowed in schools, or whether or not you ever believed this. 

You know Ben after reading your very lengthy post, I began to wonder if you've read this thread in it's entirety.

After thinking about this post some, and JCE's really surprising post, I've got a question for you and all; would you support teaching evolution as a science only in what we can accurately document from recorded history and leave the origins of species, the answer to creationism if you will, to humanities to be taught along side creationism, in a "both sides of the coin" type class (Kat's idea)?

Umm perhaps you missed my very FIRST post where I directly stated my position.

Of course.  You have to be able to change attitudes and the majority unfortunately are not easy to correct, from any vantage point.

Honestly I've never thought the way that video showed "Christians".  That thing is far too radical for me, like the Westboro Baptists.

In my opinion, I don't believe it should be illegal as in against the law.  I don't think it belongs in public school because that's not the place of worship.  Thing is however if a person feels the need to pray before his or her meal, to pray with someone who asked, or to offer prayer outside the classroom, I don't see anything wrong with that so long as it's not like that scenario that Kat talked about where a group offered free jello or whatever and began trying to convert someone who didn't want to be there. 

I think it's a matter of presentation.  I do not believe in the origins belief as I do believe in God and creation.  As to using science to explain how the flu strain changes over the years, that evolution I study and accept (though I never called it "evolution" per say but rather simply mutation since it is in the nature of a virus to do so thanks to man aiding in the DNA make up of the virus with antibiotics).

As I was saying before, calling evolution the study of how life works can be accepted as science without bias and with full support of a Christian outside the whole origins debate.  

I am not sure, but I do not think this is true. I grew up in middle America and was taught evolution...'course that was some time ago but from what my children tell me it is still being taught. I will re-read this thread...I think I may have missed something.

Yes, I would agree with this. I do not think evolution adequately answers the question of origin of life, but it should be taught as science because of the technology used and the evidence available to support the theory. There are scientific theories that address origin of life but to date they have not found supporting evidence. These should be taught alongside creationism in a humanities class.

Sad indeed!  America does a remarkably poor job educating children...in everything.  Just because I am nosy I looked for comparison stats to other countries.  The results were even more disheartening...

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060810-evolution.html

 

I think this actually starting getting into the subject of the education of Americans before college.  No matter how we may all feel about evolution or religion in high schools I think we all agree that there are serious issues with the educational system and how it litterly "de-evoloved" before our eyes.  My humble opinion, the first step to fixing this, stop teaching the test (standarized testing)!

Watch out now... haha..

I saw recently that Houston is striving to change Texas' standardized testing issues and go back to the old way of "end of semester" exams. I know funding issues are never ending but if the educational system itself would actually teach the subjects at and, stop with this "no child left behind" (so it teaches the child failure can happen and when it does you must learn how to work so you don't fail again...none of this "almost right" crap, if the student is wrong say "wrong&quot and force students to rise up to new levels. Colleges wouldn't have to worry about doing this if it began when it should have.

Perhaps it is a different thread because I can really get going on this issue.