The individuals in religion already pay taxes, and they want to be represented in their schools, as the parents have the primary office of teaching their children, to which the schoolsâ authority is only secondary.
Religions must remain tax-free so as to prevent incursions of the state onto the rights of religion. Taxing something, in our country, usually means youâre paying for using a privilege. But religion is not a privilege, but a duty; and the state does nothing to support it (although it rightfully could as the state uses religion, and not the other way around, â society benefits from religion to provide for moral education for the citizenry at large.)
I donât agree with you at all. Any person can attend church at no cost to them (aside from donations). They can learn about Creationism until their heartâs content. People who attend Church do indeed pay taxes, but so do people who donât attend church. Now, if people who attend church get to learn about Creationism at church, why should they also be represented in public schools? They are represented all over the place. If you walk down the road from a public school in any direction you will almost always bump into a church. If church goers arenât content with having their beliefs taught all over the place and still want to force their beliefs on others through public schools, thatâs just too bad. Itâs absurd that religious people are complaining about having to pay taxes for public school over the Evolution issue. I guess the fact that their children are learning how to read, write, and do mathematics isnât worth the cost. Itâs all about being huffy because they donât get their beliefs taught everywhere. Very petty.
I find it amusing (or frightening) that you donât want the state involved in religion, but itâs OK for religion to be in public schools. That explains a lot about your biased attitude.
I believe in the value of separation between church and state. Just on that basis alone, the church IMO cannot be taxed. It cannot be considered a part of the state for tax purposes.
However people that belong to a church also belong to society and get taxed in theory for what furthers the public good. Education is a public good. But this is where the problem begins. What should be included in public education? Can it be considered in the public good if its curriculum denies the essential questions of life such as âWho am Iâ and âWhat is the meaning and purpose of my life?â when they are natural for the subject matter.
The question of evolution is such a case. The question of who I am and of the meaning and purpose of life cannot be distinct from evolution by default since we are a part of it. But on the other hand the simple answer that God is working the strings is also insufficient for science.
Intelligent design though serves to point out the areas in which ID is verifiable. In the context of evolution, denying what is obvious in ID cannot be considered as education with the public good in mind. To the contrary it is a form of mind control damaging to a free society not to acknowledge and respect the possibility of ID by giving the impression that it is by definition wrong.
In no way is ID unscientific because much of the design is mathematical. The question then becomes if such mathematical relationships are chance occurrences or a product of Intelligent design. Both are a hypothesis worthy of consideration.
To not allow ID into the classroom is just another example of the closed political mind that somehow has come into power in education at the expense of the creative and objective minded. That people should have to pay for such denial and backward thinking in the form of taxes and at the expense of their children is just ludicrous. But if you look at what these people spend their money on for their collective âentertainment,â and the small-mindedness it is designed to cater to, such lunacy cannot be considered surprising.
How lame do we have to become before minds can open to the value of common sense?
A question: Do you see the state as being the same thing as society? Do we say schools teach students what the state wants them to know? It seems to me the answer is ânoâ. If that is right, then there is no comparison between religionâs relation to the state and religionâs relation to society.
For the students not from religious families, one might think of religious beliefs as education about society. But what is more important than teaching a religious belief is teaching the counter-evidence given against Darwinistic evolution. Because thatâs how empirical science works: explaining the data.
As for my âbiasâ, Iâm pretty much a theistic ID evolutionist.
I think a lot of the people who are singing the praises of having new ideas (ID, religion) presented in public schools may have their hearts in the right place, but Iâm not sure how realistic they are being. I donât think ID in schools is really about fairness or science. I think itâs about pushing Christianity further into our public and private lives. Just hearing about the commotion in Kansas is enough to make one wonder.
Since Bush has been in office, I think a lot of these IDers and religious groups are scrambling to get their piece of the pie while the gettingâs good. I simply do not trust the motives behind having Creationism taught in public schools.
Can you honestly say that there are no ulterior motives? Do you care?
Maybe I donât focus so much on âulterior motives.â I see the problem being that (1) ID is not empirical science â itâs philosophy, which may have no place in the current school curriculum. Another problem (2) is with Christians who take the Bible literally when it canât be. (Have they not read the Church Fathers?) âŚAnd taking religious writings as if they were physical science. Another problem (3) is that Darwinism is materialisticâŚwhich is all ID people want to argue against. Science once was about seeing Godâs power in nature, before science was re-fashioned in the modern age to exclude anything unseen which might be defined by philosophy.
So, I guess I see ulterior motives all over the place.
Most Americans are not interested in science and will likely not question anything that they are taught about Evolution or ID. They may slant toward one or the other, but most will not care enough to fight for a reasonable approach to the issue. The fast-talking ID people who seem to have more religious zeal than concern about the facts will be able take advantage of those without sufficient theological or scientific insight. People who lean toward ID will be easily swayed, while those that lean toward Evolution might not even care enough to say anything. As for the real scientists, people will probably not pay that much attention to them simply because many people donât have the patience to hear scientific explanations.
There is no doubt that most Americans want to hear what is easy to understand and sounds good to them personally. They do not want to be bothered with facts and critical thinking. These are the people that IDers will take advantage of. I fear that not enough people will question anything until itâs too late.
I donât really have an attitude about ID. I do have one about some of the people endorsing it. I donât believe that scientific inquiry is their primary goal.
Well, philosophic inquiry might be; or even âfides quaerens intellectumâ (faith seeking reason).
Hereâs a non-scientific way of thinking (going somewhat off-topic) that this topic has brought to mind: What does materialistic evolution say about the meaning of life. Is our purpose only to procreate and compete on the material plane? âSocial Darwinismâ seems to me not to be as great a look at life than if you see a creative God in the picture. Then there are all kinds of spiritual goods (not just sublimations of material goods) to value and attain. Proponents of intelligent design, then, may be working towards a higher kind of society and view of man and lifeâs meaning than the Darwinist theory proposes. Is that worth fighting for in pen and word?
You are saying that unless there is God, all life comes down to is popping out kids and âcompeting on the material plane.â Do you believe that we are incapable of appreciating the joys of life on our own? I think many people would disagree with that. Provide me with some evidence that non-Religious people are incapable of experiencing meaning in their lives.
Also, are you implying that ID should be accepted whether it is true or not, simply because it provides meaning? I take serious issue with that.
And finally, you are not addressing my real question! The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, as they say. Whether or not there is some sort of noble goal being pursued by IDers, I do not believe that you are looking at this situation realistically. You said earlier that you donât focus on ulterior motives. Maybe you should. I think you are looking only at what you want the result to be rather than all the potential dangers when human nature and religious belief are combined.
Iâm saying that IS the meaning in their lives. Do you know of any atheist philosophers who believe in spiritual goods? Perhaps Iâm prejudiced by considering Freud.
Perhaps we can take it as a rhetorical argument. But if you want to be honest with yourself over higher goods, I think you have to accept a spiritual world.
Religious belief is only accentuated (IMO) when human nature in considered â itâs called Christian Humanism.
Since there is really nothing to teach when it comes down to ID, this is really the crux of the issue. ID compensates for a lack of evidence by focussing on poking holes in the other guys evidence.
How anyone could imagine this to be anything other than counter productive shit disturbing is anyones guess.
Especially since none of their âcounter-evidenceâ stands up to scrutiny, and without fail is composed of out of context quote mining and extremely specious and elastic exegesisâŚ
I thought that was whatâs called âfalsificationâ of a theory.
Whether the arguments amount to anything would seem to be the debate itself.
Show the kids how to debate a scientific theory.
Still, poking holes in a theory does not itself constitute a theory, and that is the whole problem with teaching ID as itâs own theoryâŚit simply doesnt qualify.
Besides, as I already pointed out none of the âcounter-evidenceâ stands up to any sort of scrutiny, so teaching the ID arguments in schools would amount to willful dishonesty.
Iâm with Dr. S on this issue, calling ID science is akin to calling religion - science. You can no more prove that god exists than you can that we had an intelligent designer.
And the so called âholesâ are not holes at all, they are ignoring large reams of labratory evidence and archaelogical evidence. They are ignoring living transitionary forms, all in the name of god.
I donât think religious organizations should be taxed, lest they start pushing religion all over the place.
S, where can I hear more about these intermediate forms?
Again, ID is philosophy, which some philosophers would call âscienceâ (âscientiaâ), and philosophy is a prior discipline to doing empirical science. Also, as I have opined before on these boards, religion is a response to the experience of the Holy, so it should not be confused with physical sciences.
Proving an intelligent designer (I would say) is the same thing as proving Godâs existence, so what you said is correct. I simply see the (famous but not overdone) found-watch analogy as sufficent to do this.
I think I know how this will be recieved, but Iâll propose it anyway:
Letâs mix Darwin with Aquinasâ 5th way of proving Godâs existence â that is, by the observation that animals which show little intelligence seem to achieve sometimes marvelous things despite it. Therefore, runs the argument, they must be guided as an arrow from a bow; and this director, we call God.
So then, if animals are naturally directed by God to accomplish what they do, He must be the force behind evolutionâs intstincts, and thereby can be credited with the direction of evolution. But this differs from Darwinâs explanation in that the instincts can have an intended direction instead of being blind, habitual action.
Is this way of thinking interesting at all to you?
