creationism?

Couldn't agree more. Only a reason, which requires evidence surely?, on which to base that belief.

No disagreement there.:icon_bigg There is a term in philosophy for those who act rationally in all areas of their life except when it comes to religion, compartmentalism. Perhaps this is because it gives them comfort or it is what many others believe so they are not prepared to question it with intellectual rigor, being held by the grips of indoctrination.

If that is all you need, then I'm happy for you. I personally couldn't let myself do that, no matter how "right" it felt.

 

You are lucky your cute.

My belief in a God is stemmed from a relationship I have with God. And How do you know if I have not questioned my belief "with intellectual rigor"?

And do you believe in Love? Just wondering?

 

whats there to teach

if get into any detail youre getting into religious territory which can't be taught

 

Hehe, sorry if I sound confrontational, I really don't mean to be!

Just meant as a challenging conversation.

Must admit you've completely lost me....

Could I tentatively ask you to elaborate on that?

From an philosophical/intellectual/scientific perspective, that is a vacuous statement... It is certainly one that appeals to emotion, but nothing more than that.

Is it not anti-intellectual to believe in something without evidence? I certainly think so.

I, and many others, would -genuinely- be fascinated to hear what evidence you have, that would hold up to the scrutiny of the scientific method, for the existence of any greater being.

Challenging something with intellectual rigor means following the principles of freethought and the scientific method when coming to a theory/belief. Are you saying that you have done that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method

Of course I believe that we can love one another. That has, however, absolutely nothing to do with belief in the supernatural. (Be careful not to fall in to the trap of an association fallacy here!)

Ending with a little food for thought. If you were born in Iran, can you honestly say that you think that your beliefs would be the same? And with that in mind, what makes your God any more valid than theirs?

Sorry if this makes for uncomfortable reading. The intellectual approach is to not take it as a personal attack (it is definitely not meant as such), rather a personal challenge to justify your beliefs from philosophical base principals.

I certainly find it a highly stimulating when people challenge my beliefs.

 

Agreed. Which means it is anti-thought surely?

 

Ok but can you really compare being gay, to following a chosen path in religion? Keyword in there being CHOSEN. If people want to learn about creationism they should do it on their own accord, not be forced to learn about it in school. And i actually did do my research on separation of Church and State and according to Edwards vs. Aguillard 1987 the teaching of creationism as science in public schools violates church-state separation since it is a theological concept. The point of learning in schools is to keep an open mind, not to say that this how it happened and that is that. I learned about evolution in biology my freshman year and even then i was told to keep an open mind and to believe what i want to believe.

And my bad Master Hade, I misread what you said xD

 

Very true... In only a few months after that verdict, the Creationist textbooks changed every instance of the word "creationism" to "Intelligent Design," as well as "Creator" to "designer" and so forth. This necessitated the Dover Trial in 2005, which established that Creationism was the same as I.D., and thus was also banned.

Yeah, but I hope they did not tell you that ONLY evolution should have been approached with an open mind and critically considered. They should have said that EVERYTHING in science should be approached with an open mind and critically considered. Singling out evolution is intentionally misleading and untruthful.

 

Creationism is based on belief. Even though evolution isn't perfect, it's the closest to fact that we have, thanks to things such as micro-evolution. It's totally alright to believe in creationism, but it doesn't belong in our science classes.

 

yea

there really is no argument. creationism is religion-based. separation of church and state people

 

Thats what i mean't to say, that even though i was taught evolution i was still to keep an open mind about all the different possibilities about how the world was formed (scientific and/or spiritual)

 

I think you're going to spend a long time looking...

Yes, we're fallible but we're the best we've got.

Part of the scientific method is putting in the checks and balances to mitigate corruption. (Again, yes it happens, but it's an imperfect works and we have to do our best...)

Historically, religion has, and continues to be, one of the most corrupt/misappropriated things out there...

 

Without having read any of the other posts aside from the opening one, here's why I think teaching creationism in public schools is a lousy idea:

First of all, "teach the controversy" is completely full of shit. School children are simply not educated enough to make their own guesses on something as broad as cosmology. Science is not a field to present a semi-educated person with two options and let them choose which they like best. Conspiracy theories are not taught in history classes because it's not the school's or the student's place to decide which account is correct. The leading scientists of the academic arena spend their lives researching these sorts of things, and they come to a certain or near-certain conclusion, and that conclusion is what is taught in public schools, supported by the taxpaying citizens. The conclusion that the vast majority of learned cosmologists have reached is that the earth did not pop into existence, certainly not within seven days, and absolutely not a mere 6,000 years ago. I have never once met a creationist who is not also a theist, and any form of theism has ZERO, absolutely NO place in public education. It is not worth one second of my time. Creationism, ID, whatever banner it decides to hide behind, I want nothing to do with it.

 

Well if we begin teaching creationism in school, a theory based on the words in a theological text then we will have to begin teaching all religious creation theories. I mean who is to say the creation theory of the bible is more qualified to be taught than the creation theory of Hinduism.

The teaching of a religious theory in a science class would be a massive step back in scientific advancement as a society. Now I'm not here to bash other peoples beliefs I myself am a very religious person but religion should be taught in churches, temples, etc but not in our public schools.

 

If a student took a Religious Theology and Beliefs course, I would not object to creationism being taught in that class. However, as a scientific alternative to evolution, it simply doesn't compare. And what's the big whoop, if you believe in God you know that creation could be evolution anyway.

 

Creationsim cannot be taught because religion and school are separate (except for private relgious schools) and you can't bring it into the classroom.

 

Two words: Intelligent Design.

Everyone believes in "evolution", we can see it all around us. We just disagree on how it happens.

Check out intelligent design, that uses actual scientific evidence to show the interconnectedness of life, unlike Darwin's theories (which have not been proven, and in many cases disproven) that say everything in the world is based on random mutations--chance.... I find that so unbelievable, because not just isolated animals or ecosystems, but everything in the world works and fits together like Legos. That leads me to believe it's part of a design, as intricate as our DNA.

 

Remember that evolution is still just a theory. Compared to scientific laws which is proven without a doubt, scientific theories mainly explain (and are probably just intelligent conjectures and conclusions) about a certain law.

Since no one was there to actually witness the evolution, its just a theory (as of now anyway)

Since I don't really know what creationism is, but in our school, we have religion class and are taught the creation story, we are told that science does not conflict with the bible. The exact reason I forgot but I think it was because one should never take the bible literally, and that science is only explaining how one thing happens, while the bible goes into the deeper issue (or something).

Honestly though, I still see the parallelism in the creation story (the God created the world in 7 days thing) to evolution.

 

You don't understand the scientific use of the word "theory."

In college, you may take a course called "Atomic Theory." There's no time in the future when the professor is gonna change the name to "Atomic Fact." That's not what it's about. Theories don't someday become "really good" and then graduate into "fact." Evolution is a theory, and a fact (it really happened).

Theories explain facts and unite them. The theory of Evolution is a scientific explanation of what we observe around us, backed up by fact. If it weren't, we would call it a "hypothesis". Gravity is also a "theory" and a "fact."

 

Intelligent Design advocates do not use actual evidence. They don't concentrate on research (they don't produce any), peer review publications, or winning scientific consensus (they haven't). They've only concentrated on public relations and political pressure. And check out the Dover Trial, where evolution was proved again, and ID was disproved.

You're making a "straw-man" of evolution. You're ignoring the fact that nature keeps what works and discards what doesn't.