Creationism in Schools?

[Jquestionmark]

I was talking about the reality behind the theory of evolution. There you go trying to mislead my statements.

You didn't actually make that clear, which is why der Astronom was nice enough to point out which of the two possibilities he was responding to.

The lack of evidence going against creationism is just as important as any amount of evidence that shows the Earth is older than a day.
Pun intended.

Well, evidence of the age of the earth is evidence against creationism. So there's already a problem. But what about all the other creation stories? There's no evidence against the Prose Edda either, so why aren't you fighting for that to be taught in school?

I don't know how this question is relevant. Having it being labeled 'ridiculous' would be that of it not matching the theories of evolution.

Ridiculous conclusions that have been accurate have won out before. I don't know if you're familiar with how wireless technology came to be, but when first proposed, wireless transmissions were considered "contrary to science." Good science won out in the end, and now we have cell phones.

The important thing to note is that the science and math supported the conclusion: when others tested it they found it supported as well. There's a precedence in science for ridiculous but true things winning out in the end. That's why peer-review exists.

Dating something is like the lottery. Sommetimes, on the 1st try, it will be 1 million years old. Other times it could be 100 years old.

Again, I ask, have you been hanging out in science labs, watching this happen? Cause this is not what the peer-review of these results suggests.

The other dating technique included that the object must be a certain age to be testing. If you use a little bit of reasoning, you could see the huge problem with that.

I can certainly see you getting some weird results if you use the wrong dating technique for the wrong item, yeah. When you try to make bread, and use salt instead of flour, it doesn't work out.

Because as I said, it's a mockery to science.
Actually, it's a mockery to reason.

Nah, some guy making a mistake isn't a mockery. Kinda silly, a little funny, but there's no mockery happening.

People just fail to see that this ordeal is just a way to keep evolution on the books.

What ordeal? Evolution being evidence and peer-review supported? Yeah, that tends to keep it on the books.

(Of course I am not talking about basic constructs of evolution, but rather the fossil record, age of Earth, etc., God knows even though I have stated it, someone is sure to straw man this shit)

We quote what you say and respond directly to it. That's not straw-manning.

For one, you need to open your eyes to the world and stop wasting your rationale on what other people claim.

Using our reason on the claims of others is how debate works.

Or do you mean the claims of scientists? Yeah, we rely on something called peer-review to help us determine the accuracy of science. We can expect a bit of honesty because other scientists would say "hey, that's wrong" if something was.

If you wish to learn a lot about science, or anything for that matter, you have to take a step back and take in the variables.

We've been doing that. It's how we've come to our current conclusions.

Making these statements which I surely already know does not in any way defend any claims on how evolution cancels out creationism in any way.

Evolution doesn't need to cancel out creationism. One is a theory, the other a myth. No need to fight: one addresses reality, the other is religion. Creationism fails to cancel out evolution because it is not science (and that is why it has no place in a science class).

Gnosticism should be the key term to describe any philosophical/historical teaching in school.

Mixing philosphy and history sounds like a problem.

It's indiscriminate against religions, and yet explores aspects of creationism.

Gnosticism is a religion in and of itself, and this would still be religious indoctrination. Also, teaching it instead of the Prose Edda is discriminatory. Why should the time not be given to the epic deeds of Odin and his brothers? They had to work hard to make our world out of Ymir, and it's unfair to them to talk about Gnosticism instead.

A more modern teaching of course- contraries with science included.

Modern gnosticism is still a religion. And I'm not sure where it's contrary to science, or why teaching that in a religion class would be helpful (since science isn't relevant to religion).

[unadulteratedawesome]

Dating something is like the lottery. Sommetimes, on the 1st try, it will be 1 million years old. Other times it could be 100 years old.

How many more baseless assertions would you like to make? The 'source' that you gave has been thoroughly beaten into the ground, yet you cling to this notion that dating techniques are a crapshoot. Protip: They're not.

The other dating technique included that the object must be a certain age to be testing. If you use a little bit of reasoning, you could see the huge problem with that.

I could see that being a problem if we only used one form of dating. But proper scientists don't do that, so it's not an issue.

People just fail to see that this ordeal is just a way to keep evolution on the books.
(Of course I am not talking about basic constructs of evolution, but rather the fossil record, age of Earth, etc., God knows even though I have stated it, someone is sure to straw man this shit)

Alright, it's time for caps lock. I heard that it's louder or something.

THE AGE OF THE EARTH, THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE, OR EVEN THE GENESIS OF LIFE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH EVOLUTIONARY THEORY.

As far as the fossil record is concerned: There are no gaps in the fossil record. I repeat, there are no gaps in the fossil record. Everything we've found has fit into evolutionary theory. There'd be a gap if we found something and could only go "What the fuck is this?"

how evolution cancels out creationism in any way.

Evolution doesn't need to 'cancel out' anything. Creationism is thoroughly disproven in every claim it makes that is falsifiable. Now if you could organize Creationism on science's terms and have it stand up to peer review, then we could really discuss its merits. Because right now it has none. It's not even cool.

[Rydrum2112]

Just read Dover vs Kittzmiller and you will see why creationism & ID don't belong in schools. Also the fact that Sum1 said "evolution is just a theory" clearly has no idea about science. A theory in science does not have the same meaning as theory in everyday language. Its a word game played by creationists.

[Roland_Deschain]

This is a very good thread. I am not an athiest I am however an augnostic.

I do believe that Creationism should be taught in our schools. There are other significant reasons to teaching this subject than just the information of religions and belief.

First of all in my country.....America.....Creationalism is one of the main building stones that powered our country from the very start. Hence the line "one nation under god." However I dont believe it should be taught in science class because its true that itself is not a theory, allthough debatebly faith in religion could be argued as a theory because technically most religions teach that faith is the the ladder for religion. you can not disprove something that's rules are interpreted to have required faith. I think that the theory of religion is the belief in faith. Anyway this thread is not about the definition of "theory".

The end result is that in america religion is a huge aspect and part of our country for a long time and the growth of our country has been affected and sometimes dependent on these religions, and we would be denying our children valuable information that doesnt only allow them to choose for themselves but also valueable information about the bases of our country. Its an undeniable history and important part of our country.

I believe that it is wrong to celebrate creationist holidays such as christmas and easter and not teach the background of these holidays in schools.

However I seriously dont think it should be done in a science classroom, perhaps american history or world history.

[Rydrum2112]

First of all in my country.....America.....Creationalism is one of the main building stones that powered our country from the very start.

No, it was not.

Hence the line "one nation under god."

You realize that was added in the 1950s...

[Sum1sgruj]

No, it was not.



You realize that was added in the 1950s...

You do realize the symbols on currency, the free masons, why the British wanted to get away from England, etc. right?

To think that religion isn't the building block of the U.S. and it's laws is quite a denial complex.

[Hera Ledro]

Just read Dover vs Kittzmiller and you will see why creationism & ID don't belong in schools. Also the fact that Sum1 said "evolution is just a theory" clearly has no idea about science. A theory in science does not have the same meaning as theory in everyday language. Its a word game played by creationists.

First of all in my country.....America.....Creationalism is one of the main building stones that powered our country from the very start.

No, it was not.

Hence the line "one nation under god."

You realize that was added in the 1950s...

Your posts lack any evidence or support. I am not a mod, and will not pseudo-mod, but I will caution you that you should back up your claims and make more substantial posts if you hope to engage in a proper debate. One-liners and simple claims will do your credibility no favours.

In fact that caution could go out to many of the debaters here, and I would refer us all to the Debate Fallacies Thread. Many arguments tend to be slipping into some of these fallacies, perhaps the most common being red herrings, non sequiturs, and argumenti ad hominem (is my plural form right here for argumentum?).

Now, as for my actual responses.

First of all in my country.....America.....Creationalism is one of the main building stones that powered our country from the very start. Hence the line "one nation under god." However I dont believe it should be taught in science class because its true that itself is not a theory, allthough debatebly faith in religion could be argued as a theory because technically most religions teach that faith is the the ladder for religion. you can not disprove something that's rules are interpreted to have required faith. I think that the theory of religion is the belief in faith. Anyway this thread is not about the definition of "theory".

I'll elaborate a bit more on what I think Rydrum was getting at in his reply. America itself was not based on creationism, rather it was based out of a faith which believed in creationism, but if you were to go out and survey 100,000 Americans, I would predict that more than half would at least consider evolution to be true, and some of them hold the belief (not necessarily in error) that evolution works with creationism. There are many different interpretations of creationism, and not all of them must be necessarily literal.

You raise an interesting point about religious theory, one that I hope I do justice in fleshing out. A question that arises for us all to consider is what makes religious theory any less plausible or credible than scientific theories? The difference between religious and scientific theories is that one is grounded in faith - which is rooted in the idea that select people have or can obtain a mystical connection with the divine - and therefore in what we may call the 'mystical' sense that most people are not born into; the other is based entirely in senses common to everybody. Something that is often overlooked is the fact that Christians, Taoists, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, and indeed members of every conceivable human religion are subject to the sensory perception that scientists have; another thing overlooked is that many scientists - including those who support evolution wholeheartedly - are in fact religious, and just as firmly planted in faith as they are in reason. Reason itself must be taken on faith, for it is true that our senses can lie and we can only trust them (ergo we have faith that our senses paint an accurate picture for us), so we have to be careful when discussing reason vs. faith, as both play a significant role in the subjective credibility and plausibility of evolution and creationism.

What I am getting at is this: religious theories which are theorized by religious people may very well be as veridical or as credible as theories proposed by scientists, and that one proposes to be based in an exclusive 'mystical' sense whereas the other engages the senses that are available to everybody. If we are to assume equal validity between creationism and evolution, then it is easy to see why evolution is 'winning out' as it were: evolution appeals to and includes a much broader audience, an audience that can connect with it as readily as the Pope can with the divine through his readings.

Does this make your point clearer?

The end result is that in america religion is a huge aspect and part of our country for a long time and the growth of our country has been affected and sometimes dependent on these religions, and we would be denying our children valuable information that doesnt only allow them to choose for themselves but also valueable information about the bases of our country. Its an undeniable history and important part of our country.

One might argue that America is much more grounded in science than it is in religion. Admittedly North America was 'founded' in religion, but it is far from the most mono-religious of countries. In fact, despite its melting pot ideals, America (and its mosaic counterpart Canada) is an extremely diverse and multicultural country. Attitudes towards these cultures are, perhaps, more apparently racist and xenophobic in America, but there is still the fact that it is a country that many people are willing to migrate to because it allows them to keep their culture to a reasonable extent (this is subjective; some may disagree with this statement, but that is for another debate; I know I disagree with this).

Yes, religion is an important part of our history, but that doesn't mean that we should be glorifying it in schools. Hitler is a part of Germany's history, and I can guarantee that much of its historical curriculum demonizes him. Just because it is historical doesn't mean it is good; it is a fact, but facts are amoral; they are neither good nor bad, they just are.

I believe that it is wrong to celebrate creationist holidays such as christmas and easter and not teach the background of these holidays in schools.

Depending on the holiday, it depends if you interpret it as a religious holiday or a commercial holiday; there is no such thing as a 'creationist' holiday as you say. I disagree that we should not celebrate commercial holidays - Easter and Christmas, as examples, are now far more well-known due to their personal icons (the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus respectively), and are more immersed in the capitalist commercial world than they are in the religious world. Christmas is now a time we spend with family and friends exchanging gifts; while the original message has not been lost, it has certainly taken a backseat to the commercial message (opinions on this are best taken to another debate) and to the social message: respectively, buy things and love your family. But there is no such thing as a creationist holiday as you put it; there are religious holidays, but that does not necessarily mean that they are creationist or celebrate creationism (there's no World Birthday, as an example).

[unadulteratedawesome]

You do realize the symbols on currency, the free masons, why the British wanted to get away from England, etc. right?

To think that religion isn't the building block of the U.S. and it's laws is quite a denial complex.

Creationism and religion in general are far cries from each other. And religion being a 'building block' of our laws is not necessarily a good thing.

so we have to be careful when discussing reason vs. faith, as both play a significant role in the subjective credibility and plausibility of evolution and creationism.

The difference between reality and faith is that reality doesn't disappear when you don't believe in it. There's no support for faith, you can't corroborate faith with evidence, and faith is entirely subjective. Faith exists independent of reality whereas reason and science are entirely dependent on it.

We do not need faith in our perceptions, otherwise repeatable experiments would not be so.

The more I think about Creationism, the more I dislike the notion of it being 'okay' to believe in it. Sure, it's your choice, but to do so is to completely ignore reality. God and religion in general don't normally fall into this as they rest upon unfalsifiable claims (and I've mentioned before that no matter how much we know, god can always exist in the margins), but Creationism is in direct opposition to actual evidence. It's like denying the moon landing or the Holocaust (I don't mean to go Godwin's Law on this, but it's the best example I have of people believing in something completely contrary to reality). You think whatever you like, but that doesn't make it any more correct. It's irresponsible and unethical to treat Creationism in schools as anything other than irrational belief. It should get a mention in religion or philosophy courses (maybe a history course) as it is relevant, but not be portrayed as sensible. Because it's not.

This wasn't targeted at you, it was just a thought I had that was relevant to the thread.

[Jquestionmark]

You do realize the symbols on currency, the free masons, why the British wanted to get away from England, etc. right?

These things are interesting points, but creationism certainly was not part of the founding of America. Creationism is relatively recent in its current iteration, and didn't even exist at the founding. That, and it's well known that the founding fathers were most likely deists (and even if not deists, certainly not fundamentalists).

To think that religion isn't the building block of the U.S. and it's laws is quite a denial complex.

As has already been said, it doesn't matter if America did contain religion as a building block: that's not necessarily a good thing (I'd say it's a bad thing, personally).

And, even if creationism was part of the founding of America, it doesn't mean that it's better to teach in schools than any other myth. Like I said, we could at least teach something cool, like the Norse creation myth.

The difference between reality and faith is that reality doesn't disappear when you don't believe in it. There's no support for faith, you can't corroborate faith with evidence, and faith is entirely subjective. Faith exists independent of reality whereas reason and science are entirely dependent on it.

Faith and evidence can agree, but unlike science, it is not required - faith and evidence can also completely disagree. Since the stories that faith support are created independent of reality, one way too look at any evidence found for them after the fact is with the simple rule of "correlation is not causation." This is to say: just because we find evidence for a story we made up out of the blue does not mean the story is correct. The order of operations is important here: religion starts with a story and then looks at the world, science looks at the world and then works to create a story that explains it.

We do not need faith in our perceptions, otherwise repeatable experiments would not be so.

If we cannot rely on our perceptions, then there's no point to doing anything ever, since we cannot prove anyone or anything (aside from our own consciousness) exists. I suppose that you could use faith to describe that reliance, but it seems like we'd need two different definitions to faith, since one is about contradicting or ignoring reliable information, and the other is about accepting it.

Actually, I've got a suggestion, why not let religions teach their bizarre myths in school, and legally mandate that all churches must provide equal time to evolution, science, and all myths? This seems like a fair solution.

[Hera Ledro]

The difference between reality and faith is that reality doesn't disappear when you don't believe in it. There's no support for faith, you can't corroborate faith with evidence, and faith is entirely subjective. Faith exists independent of reality whereas reason and science are entirely dependent on it.

This assumes that there is an objective reality, which is something it seems we'll have to agree to disagree on. For the purpose of this discussion, we cannot so arrogantly assume that there is an overlying reality that all people experience; the world is viewed through subjective eyes, and how you perceive the world (as evidenced through our differing opinions) is not necessarily how I see the world, nor necessarily how the majority of the world feels. We are all different; neither superior nor inferior nor equal, just different. And that, I feel, is the stumbling block that many people have when they are debating the education of evolution vs. creationism: they assume that because evidence satisfies their fallible senses that the theory is infallible. I believe in evolution over creationism, but I will be the first to tell you that it is an immediately unprovable scientific theory.

Your statement also implies that people who do not view the 'real' world are either at a disadvantage because they cannot support it with evidence. To an extent they do; they can support it with evidence that can only be seen through the eyes of their particular faith. This seems like a fallacy, but compare such an instance to showing a blind child a hollow red ball. The child can feel it - it is round, she says - and can hear the sound it makes when she taps it - I hear an echo, she says - but if you hold that ball away from her or if she refuses to engage it with her other senses then there is no way for her to interact with that ball. For all the child knows there is nothing there, and perhaps she is unable to use certain senses besides her blindness; perhaps the nerves in her hands are dead, or she is deaf and blind, or something else. It is not that the child cannot engage with it, it is that she is being prevented from engaging with it either because of our part or hers.

This example is, I suggest, analogous to our debate concerning God and creationism. For all we who are unable to 'experience' the divine as faithful Christians do know, there is a sense that allows us to communicate with God (or Allah or Shiva/Brahman/Vishnu and their counterparts or any infinite number of religious deities) that we do not have access to, either because it is being refused or because we simply do not wish to engage with it - the latter of which I believe most religious people would support and indeed remains the primary reason for attempted conversion.

Evolution vs. Creationism is often seen as a binary; they must exist as opposites but cannot exist in concert. I disagree strongly not on the grounds that they must necessarily be compatible - that is to say that I do not believe for a moment that these views must be such that they do not invalidate one another - but on the grounds that the two can exist as separate belief forms with equal veridicality, validity, and credibility. One appeals to the world that we presume all people can see - but which, as I have shown, cannot be so readily assumed to be the case - whereas the other may very well appeal to a world that all people could theoretically see but is somehow inaccessible due to human intervention.

This all is an attempt to support my stance in that all cultures can exist in peace - that, in context of this discussion, they can teach their 'theories' (or myths or what have you) alongside scientific knowledge - if they swallow their thrice-damned pride and arrogance. This applies not only to conventional religions but also to newer religious movements: to cults, sub-cultures, organizations, and to the archetypal atheist movement and any other cultural entity you may find. If there is one thing I have learned from my study (besides the fact that you, Angelus, were right and that math is awesome D: ) it is that the world's problems tend to root in anger and arrogance, which are usually spawned from being either proud or greedy. It is this that we must solve if we are to ever see a day where different religions can co-exist in harmony and without fear of others haranguing them into submission - that we can teach creationism and evolution and let the children and their families decide what they want to believe in.