taiarain

the movement to indoctrinate students with creationism was concentrated within a religion other than Christianity, Judaism or Islam?

Would there be growing support for 'teaching both' if both meant the scientific theory of evolution and that a goddess birthed the entire universe? What if people slapped together pseudo-science claims that evolution could not have begun without help and since females are the bearers of life, all life must be born of feminine design?

Would anyone here who has supported the preaching of creationism in public schools also support the teaching of this version of creationism? Why or why not?

(Please do not claim that I made this concept up. There are a good many people who actually do believe the universe was borne by a goddess. I first came across it some 15 or 16 years ago.)

Og

It's got no use in a science class. Put it in a theology class. Science class does not speak to hypotheses which are immune to proof or disproof. Those are considered to be useless questions in science.

The only reason ID wants to jump on the science bandwagon is that it's responsible for our current society and the future of humanity because of it's methods.

ID or other mythological "ideas" about the beginning of the universe have no place in a science class. The big bang is an extrapolation of what we know. If anything, it doesn't describe the very beginning, just what it was like a long time ago (that we can SEE with telescopes).

Mythologies in the english/religion courses. Science in the science courses.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

mplltt

It is possible for people to interpret theological knowledge in such a way that the universe was created by a Goddess. The natural reply to this would be male supremacy, (please do not say that I made that up) I think that the universe could have no supreme being and has only people trying harder and harder to go further back in the history of all existence to have more of it to exist. To seek out the unknown to search for evidence of small movements of nature instead of gargantuan gigantic events that can be refuted easily. There is also people that seek out the future no matter how far they get, only a few years ahead about 19 or 20 years, will only find strife and unhappiness because of loss of continuity, no strength in the youth, and or existence of youth to make a future worth living in. They don't have a part in the past that exists today and therefore they have what seems like eternal rage because they only have the present.

Now, existence of a Goddess, this is a difficult way of saying this but looking forward and back, there is no evidence that would support this for me. seek my post: http://www.agnosticforums.com/what-a...ere-clear.html . This will be the difinition of what I believe you are seeking out from this forum. If you are seeking a theological answer, you are in the wrong place, my friend.

I always like the way that I am told by famous philosophers the way of the present and the writings of Voltaire sum it up lightly: "History is a pack of lies we play on the dead."

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Thank you, I am impressed that you are forgiving enough to approach this line of reasoning.

taiarain

mplltt, lots of assumptions about me. Patently false assumptions at that.

The question is, what kind of debate would there be if the creationism claptrap being pushed on our kids wasn't Christian.

BTW: How is a fabricated notion like male supremacy the natural reply to anything?

Og

The actual formation of the claim is irrelevant. It's still a claim. An ideology. It's got no basis of evidence to back it up.

Evolution is not a claim. What evolution is is an expression of a body of observation. The theory of evolution is an expression of a picture that these points draw. It is in no way designed by us other than as a perfect expression of repeatable evidence. When we say "evolution" it's like saying "person" when we look at a portrait. It's a description of what the underlying bits draw.

Claims like ID, regardless of their source or the actual components of the actors in the claim, are mental constructs without peer review or an emperical basis and which can not be agreed upon (and in fact, are not agreed upon across world religions).

When ID is a description of a body of evidence and not wishful thinking then it can come out of the poetry/theology courses and into scientific courses. I wish people could see how dark and ugly this intelligent design approach is. Science brings so much wonder to the world that we can all share in. It brings people closer together and connects us more to a true realization of our nature.

ID is an ideology that takes this sense of wonder and discards it. It doesn't matter what form it takes or what goddess/god is involved. It is not "the other side of the argument" or "valuable in the scientific classroom" or "a valid theory supported by evidence."

Evolution is not an argument. It is a body of repeatable observation and evidence. ID is an attempt to shove literal interpretations of mythology into the scientific community while denying them the same rigorous testing that all other assertions must undergo.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

mplltt

I would like to apologize for assuming if it has been taken as such, I must object. Had there been a person who would try to refute this they would have taken your side had I not placed a disclaimer like: "The natural reply to this would be male supremacy, (please do not say that I made that up) I think that the universe could have no supreme being and has only people trying harder and harder to go further back in the history of all existence to have more of it to exist." I know now that you are on the correct point insomuch I recind my theological assumption of your tastes. I am sorry. (where I said that if you wanted a theological answer...blah!) I believe that you are a well founded person who wishes only to question myths or possibilities.

NOW! to answer the claptrap!! I am glad and so very happy that you have brought this up. First I would like for you to read my post: http://www.agnosticforums.com/evolut...schools-5.html . Now I want for you to imagine that there is a God and he does exist to be the answer of all things natural. If we were saying that there is a God and that he does exist to make the answer to all things and there was a female Goddess that were, if it be known, a part of God, what would our belief system include? Would she/he have to make decisions to hide the truth from the opposite sex? This would give rise to the male supreme and/or female supremicy I spoke of as the natural response. Would this also give rise to some sort of psychological disorder of God/Goddess proportions? Is it possible for God to hide something from himself? The interesting part of this would be the consistency that God has inherent within theological books, but they base their proof on the way they organize the books, so are books necessarily (and this has been heard before) the final truth of all things? So now, are both words and books flawed? THis makes me want to laugh at my own line of questioning, hence the quote by Voltaire: "You despise books; you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books. " So we are to believe that would stregthen my point. The issue here is to only give a notion that to truly not be ruled by anyone else, one would have to appreciate the opposite sex.

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Thank you, I am impressed that you are forgiving enough to approach this line of reasoning.

Lyricb

I don't mind evolution being taught as long as it is presented as a theory, and I don't mind theology being taught as long as it is presented as some people's beliefs.

Og

What are you implying by this statement? That somehow the scientific method is dogmatic in some way? Are there places where evolution is taught without evidence and people are expected to take it on belief because their teacher says so?

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

The An-Jel

I would think so Og and it is better unfortunately than creation. Yes the scientific method IS Dogmatic and it should BE. Why? Because they do research rather than ASSUME a God that parts the Red Sea for a bunch of people. Ask Newton, ask Einstein... when something is proven to be true it is a Truth. The End. Finito!

dog·ma /ˈdɔgmə, ˈdɒg-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[dawg-muh, dog-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun, plural -mas, -ma·ta /-mətə/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[-muh-tuh] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation. 1. a system of principles or tenets, as of a church.
2. a specific tenet or doctrine authoritatively laid down, as by a church: the dogma of the Assumption.
3. prescribed doctrine: political dogma.
4. a settled or established opinion, belief, or principle.

The principle is what I am thinking about. Opinions are like... beliefs are mythology and legend... principles (a fundamental, primary, or general law or truth from which others are derived) are paths to the truth evolving with thought and physical experimentation.

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Og

This is actually totally incorrect. The scientific method is non-dogmatic and self correcting for one reason. It does not reach truth. And in fact, this was a big frustration that Einstein expressed.

It's best summed up in Sherlock Holmes's famous quote:
This is the essence of the scientific method. You can imagine an infinite domain of possible explanations for an event. You take a region of the possibilities and you design a test for them (this is hypothesis and testing). You then disprove or fail to disprove a hypothesis. If you disprove it, you discard that piece of the space of possibilities.

In this manner, as a sculptor cuts away the excess material to reveal the shape underneath, science gets to the truth.

But science never says "this is truth". It says "this is what we observe" and it may be able to say, if observations directly contradict a point, that something is false. But as any good scientist will tell you, there is always an approach to truth and never acquisition of truth in science. The space of possibilities is infinite and there is always another test and another theory to be brought to bear on the problem.

Then there's a whole realm of untestable hypotheses like invisible dragons (see carl sagan).

When crazy fundamentalists hold up blank pieces of paper and yell "this is all the proof there is for evolution!" I smile and realize that he's exactly right. You do not show proof, you show evidence. There's a big difference. That difference is why the the scientific method is non-dogmatic. It takes nothing authoritatively.

The theory of evolution is not something separate from the body of evidence, in fact, the theory of evolution simply is a condensed way of describing all of the evidence that has lead up to it.

Agnosticism is the essence of science. They never say concretely that they KNOW something to be true and that there's no other possibility. They may say "i know from observation," but that's different.. it's a qualification where they indicate that they are NOT an authority.

If you put a bunch of kids on an island and they grew up and formed a society separate from humanity, I doubt they'd generate the bible. But I think it's fair to say that they would develop an understanding of the world around them through observation and testing. Dogmatic structures can't be independently arrived at. A path towards truth and a good "idea" of what's going on in reality can develop independently.

Dogmatic = prove something true by authority (axioms)
Non-dogmatic = Showing what is false only

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are