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This is untrue. Evolutionists who are atheists don't have a materialistic agenda by not wanting Creationism taught in science class. Science class is for teaching students about facts, not fiction. Evolution is actual science and a fact of life. Creationism is not science and not fact, therefore should not be taught in science class.
No, most do have a naturalist agenda. They're radical fundamentalists of their own religion.
I am an atheist/"evolutionist" and I would absolutely LOVE if kids were taught philosophy (metaphysics and naturalism) in school. I don't think you would find many atheists who would be against teaching the principles and ideas in metaphysics.
However, if you are just masquerading the term 'metaphysics' as 'christianity', then of course there will be an issue. If you are going to teach kids about christianity, then you need to teach them about other religions in a 'Religion' class. Let's not fool ourselves into thinking that Religion=Metaphysics. It is merely a very very small subset of it and is better categorized as theology.
This is typical. The fear and distrust is so great that the accusation is hurled and subsequently argued against that I am "masqueradding the term 'metaphysics' as 'christianity'," regardless of the fact that I made no mention whatsoever of religion or Christianity. The distrust is offensive and, worse, reveals the level of paranoia on the behalf of the people who make such vapid accusations.
Actually, if we are all honest, small gradual changes in some systems would be illogical without a designer.
Why? And which systems?
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Originally Posted by RobinD69
Actually the scientific community does not take the creationists serious enough for such a court case to be arbitrated. They are usually thrown out before they get to the courts. Like I also said the conflict is not really between creation and evolution but between creation and abiogenesis. While evolusion can be explained by ID just as well as by science.
Well, there was the Dover trial for once. Went to court all right. You know, that's the one where the judge ruled that Intelligent Design is not science, and is relabelled creationism.
(There's a NOVA documentary about the whole thing, if anyone's interested. It's available on YouTube and on their website if you do a bit of Googling.)
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Originally Posted by BergenCountyJohnny
The real solution to the "Creation vs. Evolution" debate is one that neither side wants. That solution is to give kids in high school a course, even if it's just one year of high school, in which they are taught enough about philosophy to understand basic logic and reason, and what the fundamental influences are on metaphysical as well as naturalist worldviews.
[snip]
Evolutionists who are naturalists (which is most of them and most atheists) won't want this because they summarily dismiss any notion of a metaphysical and wish to impose their naturalist view upon everyone else as well. Many of them go as far as to blame metaphysics or supernatural beliefs for the ills of the world.
Except for, among others, Catholics. There's 1.2 billion or so throughout the world, so you might have heard of them.
But as a naturalist, I still disagree with your claim. I have no problem with philosophy. I did have lessons in philosophy in high school - two years, with the option of either 3h/week or 6h/week (I chose 6). I'm all for teaching kids about philosophy and critical thinking. I'm unconvinced, however, that this has anything to do with the crea/evo debate.
What BS....Science has no agenda...It is the pursuit of knowledge, nothing more.
In theory. In theory, the USA is dedicated to the premise that "all men are created equal and granted with certain inalienable rights", but we know that despite that being the theoretical premise of American society, the reality was (and still is) that people are not believed to be created equal and divisions are in fact drawn by various factors, whether the corporal slavery of the past or the economic slavery of the present.
Likewise, in theory, "science" has no agenda and "is the pursuit of knowledge", yet in reality, there is a scientific community which drives various agendas based on a form of majority rule. Front and foremost is the agenda by which science seeks to supplant Philosophy as the basis for logic and reason; through that gateway, certain factions of the scientific community seek to replace epistemology with a form of democratic "majority-rules" naturalism.
Trying to talk about this to people here is probably a huge waste of time, but if I see someone who can respond intelligently, well, maybe I'll get my hopes up a little. But I'm expecting more responses like "that's BS, science is objective, science is fact, science is true," blah blah blah, ad nauseum...
look at the example of the founding fathers being selectively quoted to counter Christianity when in fact the majority of the founders were Christian and the nation was created with Christian values.
Once again, Robin69, the personal religion of the founders of the country (mostly Deist, by the way) are irrelevant to the fact that they built a nation built on secular principles with an expectation that people would pursue a relationship with God on their own terms.
Why do so many extrapolate one's personal religious views to an assumption that they would force those views on the public through a government institution? Only fundamentalists do that. Most religious people in public office keep it to themselves, and that's precisely what the founders did for our sake.
The correlation, again, to the topic at hand is that you cannot force one religion's beliefs into a public school system of a nation explicitly created to keep the state from endorsing any one religion.
Please stop twisting history, Robin69.
You do not live in a Christian nation. There is no legal premise to adopt one religion's creation myth over any other religion's creation myth.
In theory. In theory, the USA is dedicated to the premise that "all men are created equal and granted with certain inalienable rights", but we know that despite that being the theoretical premise of American society, the reality was (and still is) that people are not believed to be created equal and divisions are in fact drawn by various factors, whether the corporal slavery of the past or the economic slavery of the present.
Likewise, in theory, "science" has no agenda and "is the pursuit of knowledge", yet in reality, there is a scientific community which drives various agendas based on a form of majority rule. Front and foremost is the agenda by which science seeks to supplant Philosophy as the basis for logic and reason; through that gateway, certain factions of the scientific community seek to replace epistemology with a form of democratic "majority-rules" naturalism.
Trying to talk about this to people here is probably a huge waste of time, but if I see someone who can respond intelligently, well, maybe I'll get my hopes up a little. But I'm expecting more responses like "that's BS, science is objective, science is fact, science is true," blah blah blah, ad nauseum...
I agree with you on this. There is a clear agenda and bias in the scientific community. They believe anything metaphysical is simply tricks of the mind or ignorance. I've faced it myself, for sure.
But, even so, no substantiated evidence has ever withstood scrutiny from creationists. That's the sad reality underlying all of this. When given the opportunities to present their case, they have never been able to draw any conclusive evidence that evolution is not happening and there is ample evidence presented that it is.
Likewise, in theory, "science" has no agenda and "is the pursuit of knowledge", yet in reality, there is a scientific community which drives various agendas based on a form of majority rule. Front and foremost is the agenda by which science seeks to supplant Philosophy as the basis for logic and reason; through that gateway, certain factions of the scientific community seek to replace epistemology with a form of democratic "majority-rules" naturalism.
Trying to talk about this to people here is probably a huge waste of time, but if I see someone who can respond intelligently, well, maybe I'll get my hopes up a little. But I'm expecting more responses like "that's BS, science is objective, science is fact, science is true," blah blah blah, ad nauseum...
I can do that if you like, but right now you haven't given us anything to discuss. As you know, a claim that can be made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Whatever happens "usually" is irrelevant. We're not talking about the scientific community. We're talking about the legal system. Such court cases have been tried with full opportunity and legal protections afforded the creationists to make their claims in full and be heard before a jury. They have failed to make a convincing argument.
Any creationists that have attempted to bring in their proof has been discredited for other reason and therefore considered irrelevant. You know like discrediting Carl Baugh for the college he went to instead looking at his discoveries.
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Not thrown out. Look it up. National Geographic I believe has a whole documentary on one court case. I think you're simply trying to protect your views rather than seek truth objectively.
I just covered that, see above.
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btw - it's spelled evolution. Perhaps a typo, but if you're going to argue against a scientific theory, it doesn't help your credibility in having studied the theory to make an informed argument if you don't even know how to spell the title.
You just proved my point, thank you. BTW it was a typo I paid no attention to.
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A brief aside in reference to your other post - whatever Thomas Jefferson's personal spiritual struggles were, he was adament about keeping our nation free of state religion. He could see beyond his own personal struggles to the larger needs of mankind. That's why we can't just let one religion's creation myth be adopted without scientific evidence. Science changes, so there is always hope, but as of today it is not a valid position for science class.
Key point is state religion, but he was also adament that Christianity, the Bible in particular, was an important part of education. Okay leave creation out, just as the evolutionists want to leave out anbiogenesis and look at the flood and other proven areas of the Bible.
I agree with you on this. There is a clear agenda and bias in the scientific community. They believe anything metaphysical is simply tricks of the mind or ignorance. I've faced it myself, for sure.
But, even so, no substantiated evidence has ever withstood scrutiny from creationists. That's the sad reality underlying all of this. When given the opportunities to present their case, they have never been able to draw any conclusive evidence that evolution is not happening and there is ample evidence presented that it is.
Right. The ignorance and prejudice is on both sides. The irony is that there are Christians who support evolution as being scientific and there are agnostics and even atheists who support the notion that a worldview which incorporates metaphysics-based beliefs are as valid as those based on a naturalist worldview (indeed, philosophically, more valid). I have a cousin who is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at McGill University in Montreal. He was given a full scholarship and is only preparing a thesis because he was virtually begged to return to the school to complete one. He is an agnostic and is involved with a group of philosophers whose goal is to fight the advancement of what he calls "the religion of science". He sees it clearly and so do his fellow philosophers, and most of them are agnostics and/or atheists (many are agnostic atheists). They have no stake in defending Christianity or religion per se, but feel a threat to Philosophy from the general scientific community.
It's evident on forums like these that at the roots level in the scientific community that science is indeed accepted by them as not an outgrowth of philosophy and thereby logic and reason, but instead as the premise from which all logic and reason is determined. Put succinctly, the scientific community's agenda is to undermine philosophy and supplant it with science by imposing and (circularly) in order to impose naturalist philosophy. It is no surprise that philosophers would be in opposition to this agenda of the religion or movement of science.
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