Should Creationism be taught in Public School?

reply to post by davesidious


i was just thinking along the lines of avoiding a national tragedy like in contact when the christian straps a bomb to himself and blows up the device that takes us to the aliens

but yes screw them those people are brainwashed and have lost there damn minds

reply to post by ashanu90


It would be a far greater national tragedy to have generations of children completely ignorant of biology, and doubting the scientific method. Far, far greater.

Originally posted by davesidious
reply to post by ashanu90

 

It would be a far greater national tragedy to have generations of children completely ignorant of biology, and doubting the scientific method. Far, far greater.

good point

reply to post by Geolion1


what are you talking about? everything in science that is taught is a fact?

read this post on the dating methods evolutionists use, on how they toss out all the conflicting data, and label everying "x" number of years old where "x" is the closest number to what they think the date should be based on preconsieved notions (i.e. evolutionary theory)

www.abovetopsecret.com...


i for one, believe two different philosophies should be taught. evolution (and it should be taught with some skeptisizm, as the above article shows how "scientific" people who push this theory are) and creationism. keep religion out of creationism, and instead teach about the order and math that is found in nature and the different philosophic arguments for a god (things like every effect has a cause). also anthropic constants would be an interesting side lesson.

so that is a "yes" for teaching both. what type of ignorant person do you have to be to encourage indoctrination? teaching only evolution is straght up indoctrination.

[edit on 23-4-2010 by Bob Sholtz]

Seeing as the theory of evolution remains a theory, unproven, this likewise should not be taught in schools.

yes. why not? evolution is a theory NOT FACT. There's more evidence in the fossil record that creation is closer to the truth, so why not teach the truth?

Yes, I know what it is.

And the only way I believe it should be allowed to be taught in schools is under a dedicated course on "Theology & Religious Studies" ONLY!

It should not be used as a valid competing theory for evolution as it has no scientific merit.

Hell, my girlfriend's 6 year old came home the other day and told us her teacher told her how the Earth rotated. It was God's hand "turning" the planet.

FFS! I then proceded to tell her no, that isn't correct and that her teacher was making up a silly story because she herself doesn't know why the Earth turns. I explained it was that things in space will move almost forever if moved and when all the planets were created, all the movement made the Earth spin (I dumbed down the leftover momentum of the solar system forming as it was too complicated).

yes. why not? evolution is a theory NOT FACT. There's more evidence in the fossil record that creation is closer to the truth, so why not teach the truth?

We shouldn't teach gravity within public schools because it's a theory, yet we should teach children about a man poofing things into existence with his nostrils, and call it fact?

Your lack of understanding of the scientific term "theory" is evident.








[edit on 23-4-2010 by GrandKitaro777]

Groupies

It seems to me that all children over 14 years old should be told about the superstitions of ancient peoples, whether in the middle east with their talking snakes and ideas of a Req'iaq (firmament, or 'dome') over a flat earth set on 7 pillars, or in the Mayan oral traditions of creation from the gods & goddesses, or the norse creation myths of the ancient chinese myths or the hindu myths of creation - all should be taught so that children can see how mankind over the centuries has come to understand the world we live in.

Now most intelligent people don't literally believe in the creation myths of the Jews (Gen 1:1 to 2:4a and Gen 2:4b to 4:26 etc.) since we all know that snakes don't talk and that flat earths don't exist in nature surrounded by a Dome with water above it, or that plants/vegetation and grasses were created BEFORE the sun, moon and the stars (even thought the ancient illiterate 'semi nomadic' Hebrew tribelets might have - but then again their clan god told them to make bronze snakes and put them on poles to ward off snake bite, so that kind of puts their pre-scientific view of the world into perspective) - so it would be very silly to teach children that the creation myths of the Jews have any more validity than say than the Egyptian creator god Atum doing the nasty with his right hand ('making auto-sex-love with his shadow') in order to to produce Shu and Tefnut etc. - but it would be a worthwhile exercise TO EXPOSE CHILDREN to these myths (including the Greek and Roman myths of Creation) so they can see the type of language that is being used in their 'bibles' (for the indoctrinated among them) for comparison.

Here is a handy-dandy LINK of Creation Myths (a starting point) that every school child over the age of 14 should be exposed to - so he will know immediately that when someone tells him literally to believe in talking snakes or virgin births, he would be in a position of knowledge not superstitious fear of clergy (who like to keep their sheeple frightened, preferably at ALL times ! )...

www.plesiosaur.com...

Originally posted by Snarf
ahhh, the typical snobbish elite reaction. Religious people are stupid.

Well, I'm a bit late with a response but that is most certainly NOT what I said.

Okay - i'll call myself an idiot when you PROVE any of the following leaps of faith:


1.) The Big Bang
2.) Evolution
3.) Scientology
4.) Space Aliens
5.) Conspiracy to kill Kennedy
6.) Any conspiracy you believe in that is not yet proven true
7.) Origin of species: Mankind.


Until then, you know as much about existence as any bible thumping preaching at a podium.

Nice derailing attempt there. None of that has anything to do with the topic at hand.

Creationism has as many different versions and varieties as there are religions. Which one are you going to teach? All of them? Or just the biblical version?

Also, there remains no evidence of a "creator" nor that anything in the universe was "created" by said "creator". Creationism is a top-down theory, when all scientific evidence and observations point to a bottom-up scheme.

Creationism should most certainly NOT be taught in schools.

No. Creationism should not be taught in schools.

What needs to be done is to show people that evolution is a fact. Darwinism is a theory to explain the fact. There are other theories on evolution besides Darwinism. The one theory that has worked out is Darwinism. That does not mean that it is perfect. It needs to be tested and adjusted as more information is learned about the biological world.

A mistake often made by people is to think that a scientific theory is not proved. People need to understand the difference between the vernacular use of the word theory and how it is used in science. People need to learn the difference between truth and fact. These are good starting points.

What people want to do with creationism is to push one particular religious belief in school. In that belief a god uses magical incantations to produce a world. The world described in that myth is recent and does not match the world we see about us.

If they start giving credit for "religion class" I want equal credit for reading Stephen King's "IT".

Obviously I think religion should be in history class when it come to showing why people were burning "witches" and all that fun.

[edit on 23-4-2010 by nophun]

In the Voodoo, astrology course section, maybe.

It should never be taught as 'science', because there is no sound evidentiary basis for it to date.

Originally posted by Geolion1
Question 1:
Do you know what creationism is? (Answer truthfully)

Quite intimately, as a former christian.

Question 2: Should creationism be taught in public schools? Yes or No, if you want you may add a reason why? Thanks

Absolutely not. Schools exist to educate. Teaching mythology and presenting it as fact does nothing but harm. The only acceptable case for creationism to be taught in public schools, in my opinion, is in a class on mythology and religion - and all creation myths should be described with equal time given to each.

If they wanna teach creationism at school, they should teach ALL creationist versions...the Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Papua New Guinea bush people version!

Why? Because none of them can prove they're the "right" creationist version. Obviously the Christian fundamentalists asking for creationism to be taught in the first place won't agree.

The people asking for creationism to be taught are the same people who want a sticker in books talking about evolution that says "evolution is only a theory, just like creationism". But if people would ask them for a similar sticker to be put in all bibles, they'll start whining like little girls.

At least science is looking for real proof, whereas religion claims to have proof that isn't really proof (the bible).

I am more interested in why the Christian evangelist groups increasingly see the need to push their beliefs onto a captive audience in public schools. Could it be the fact that the religious who regularly attend churches are growing older and there is increasingly a lack of interest in religion among the young? That the Church leaders power and source of income will start to decrease as the older members start to die off.

There is simply no reason that they can't teach religion at churches and yell it at every corner while leaving the schools alone except for the need for new members whom are otherwise out of reach. To potentially mold the minds of our youth whose parents keep them away from the churches before they reach the maturity needed for independent critical thought.

It's only a matter of time before religion and state are separated again. Young people all over the place are realizing that they've been brainwashed at church, and that science is the only right way of finding truth.

- Church believed the earth was flat and killed people who didn't agree => they were wrong

- Church believed the sun revolves around the earth and killed people who didn't agree => they were wrong

- Church believed that ... and killed people who didn't agree. => they were wrong

Fact is, time and again claims by the church and religions has been proven wrong by science. Sure, science can't explain everything (yet), but every time science proves religion wrong, they lose some of their power.

There's nothing wrong with religion, if it makes you happy...as long as it doesn't prevent progress the rest of us want. With progress, I mean scientific progress. I for one am fine with not knowing everything, and I am humble enough to admit not knowing everything...religious people claim to know things they CAN'T know, and many of them try to force their beliefs upon us. Teaching creationism at schools is one of them.

To be fair both creation and evolution should be taught as theories, and students get to form their own opinions.
Creation is faith in God, not faith in the church and it's clergy.
Evolution is faith in science, and it's proponents.

My problem is which version of creation do you teach, not the impossible 6 literal 24 hour day version.

As to the version of evolution you teach, does it really matter?

[edit on 25-4-2010 by Blue_Jay33]

reply to post by Geolion1


I believe holes and inconsistencies in the materialist explanation of existence should be discussed in the classroom as well as the evidence pointing towards intelligent design, NO THEOLOGY should be allowed as a curriculum though.

Originally posted by SmokeandShadow
reply to post by Geolion1

 

I believe holes and inconsistencies in the materialist explanation of existence should be discussed in the classroom as well as the evidence pointing towards intelligent design, NO THEOLOGY should be allowed as a curriculum though.

At what level?

The title of this thread is incorrect. It should read "should CHRISTIAN Creationism be taught in public schools"

I'm all for a class in ALL Creationism Legends - being an elective in 12th grade. Why 12th grade? Because - in my opinion - it is the last phase a child is under parental "rule of thumb". Good time to shake up a belief that many had forced on them by their parents.

Most people don't choose their god belief - - they are assimilated into it.