I'm working on a project for my evolution lab, and I stumbled across a creationist's website and I found this little bit on "Creation Science" funny.
"Creationism, also known as creation science, is the study of scientific evidence for the creation of life on earth by God. The courts have ruled that creationism cannot be taught in the public schools because creationism is religion and religion cannot be taught in the public schools. However, this conclusion depends on how creationism is taught. If creationism is taught in the proper way, it is not religious in nature." (emphasis added) This guy goes on to explain why it is not religious, but I think he's kind of digging himself in a hole here.
I don't know, to me teaching evidence of creation by a God seems religious to me, and I don't think you can ever get away from that being religious. My problem with teaching about the creation in the public classroom mostly stems from the fact that I wouldn't want to put my kids in a public classroom and have someone teach them religious ideas that do not concide with my own religious beliefs. I don't know who is making up all the drafts for creation science in the classroom, but I do know I don't go to their church. I don't know what kind of stuff their going to be putting in my kids heads. To top it all off, I have no problem with the way science is done today, I approve of teachers teaching science according to modern science's current views (which also happen to include the view that ID is not science).
Anyway, I hope I'm not burning you out, but I just think this is important, and people tend to treat this as if it's not a big deal when it really is.
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Matt and I were married two years ago. We recently bought our first home in Eagle Mountain, UT. Little Ezra joined our family on September 30, 2007, and we love him lots! Feel free to get a peek into our life together here or at Matt's blog.
what about a general humanities course that discusses differnent cultures and religions. including among many things, their different creation myths.
For me that I can agree to. I think it's good to have a well-rounded education of different cultures past and present. I would love for my children to know about different religions and ideas, just not be hounded in a class by one specific idea. (I'm not really good at explaining myself here, I probably sound self-contradictory) And of course it's completely different teaching these things in a humanities, philosophy course where you can ensure many different points of view. Unlike the ID agenda which is really just Christianity's creationism story.
I'm glad you read my posts Loyd, I'm not sure if anyone else I know really cares about these things.
I agree with the Heat. It's one thing to have a humanities course that teaches about all different types of religions and different types of philosophies. In that context it's just talking about what people think and why people think that. That's not the way a science class is set up. The science class tries to address facts and theories about the world around us. The difference would be in the presentation of the ideas.