Article: Religion and Science

Thank you, well put.Reality is messy. Utopian micromanagement always leads to great evil for that reason. Nobody has a right to put his beliefs over others, even his absolute belief in 2+2=4.

Get serious.

Whew, sanity on the enemy side yet. Thank you again.

You have a bizarre idea of what is taught in a "fundy" school, but the answer to you in general is it's none of your damn business what is taught unless it is criminal behavior. Leave people alone. If they are wrong that's their business, not yours. You are making the case for totalitarian tyranny.

You know what? Your post could be easily parodied from the Far Right or the Racist Right. Here's the original followed by the parody: ***************** PARODY OF JAR'S POST: **************** [quote] IMHO there is a problem. We have a problem because [Jews, blacks, Leftists] ...often end up in decision making capacities, in Congress, the white House, and increasingly (by design) on school boards. Increasingly, [Jews, blacks, Leftists] ... are becoming the tyrants. Look at what happened in [ various states where Leftist laws are being "pushed through the legislature" ] and is going on now in [ ditto ]. Look at the [Judicial activism which has forced all kinds of Leftist laws on us by usurping the function of the legislature and effectively destroying the Constitutional balance of powers and circumventing the voice of the people, which is SUPPOSED to be what this nation is all about.]Make no mistake. [Religion and morality] are under direct attack by the [Left] and they are a far bigger threat than terrorist[s] will ever be. The goal of the [Left] is [a totalitarian society in which conservative voices are silenced by force]. It's not their own [right to live their own lives as they see fit], they want to force through law and legislation [their leftist views] on every person in the world.Their methods are threefold, gain control of the school boards, gain control of local governments and gain control of the broadcast medium. They don't need to control all the media, only enough outlets so that their propaganda becomes ubiquitous. And they have that today.[/quote]You are opposing the legitimate functions of a free society, you are opposing democracy itself.You reveal by this post that you aren't in disagreement with Brian at heart after all. You show your distrust of a free society in which free citizens have a voice in the running of the society which has always been popularly tagged as the right to "grow up to become President." Such suspiciosness would always prefer some form of state oppression to curtail the rights of those with whom you disagree, the exact opposite of the spirit of the American Constitution.I think I hit on the best answer to you on the other thread this morning: In a free society people are allowed to be wrong. That means nobody has the right to force them to be right.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-23-2005 09:36 PM

You don't directly, but in spirit by complaining about the freedom of those you disagree with to operate within society according to democratic means you appear to sympathize with oppressive means to your ends. You appear to favor preventing parents from raising their children as they please. If I have misread you, and all you want to do is try to persuade, I apologize.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-23-2005 09:33 PM

I have decided that it is important to call my opponents on their character assassinations and personal attacks. Therefore I am pointing out yours: This is worthy of a suspension.Now to the substance: Here is a clear statement of your will to force these dreadful human beings you hate so much to submit to YOUR "reasoned decisions." You discredit them personally as even CAPABLE of such. Well, what do good fascists do with people who are incapable? Curtail their rights, make sure they cannot act upon their opinions, either by laws against them or if all else fails, the gulag. As long as you keep poisoning the well this way to make your opponents appear to be as evil as possible, you can rouse all kinds of unthinking people to your "cause." This is a common technique of demagogues and fascist dictators. Simply smear the opposition with emotion-laden labels (they want to teach their children falsehoods) and you can turn your constituents into wolves ready to tear the heart out of such evil people. The demagoguery and rabble-rousing escalates. Soon we'll have a lynch mob. Have you no capacity whatever to see things from your opponents' point of view, to give the benefit of the doubt, to recognize that like all parents they have only the best for their children at heart? You are doing to Christians what Hitler did to the Jews -- giving them a public image as evil. You in fact are violating the message of Jesus with your utterly uncharitable mischaracterization of your opponents. Well, your fascist spirit scares the hell out of me so we're even.

I believe GDR is asking a simple question of fact: what is the nature of the philosophy or movement that gets called Intelligent Design here? IS it a movement? Are all who support ID in agreement? Are there different forms of it? I myself don't know or I'd try to answer him.

Lfen, holmes, jazzns and TimChase: Kudos to the Defenders of Freedom. And thanks for being on my side on this one.

Willful ignorance is a right in a free society. If you have a problem with it, get over it. Human beings are not perfect, and that includes you despite your own apparent self-assessment that allows you to dictate what others have a right to think. Yes, your idea of the success of reaching out to and reasoning with people appears to be that you prove to them they are wrong and they submit to your superior views and thank you for correcting them, and if this doesn't happen you think the effort is worthless. So you abandon the effort and refuse even to treat your opponents with respect BECAUSE they remain opponents and refuse to agree with you.Sorry, life in a free society means living peaceably with people who don't agree with you in the slightest. The wisdom of the Founders of America was that they understood the problem of inevitable conflict between people and sought a solution that would work best to prevent a devolution into tyranny, which is the natural outcome of such conflict. Always those who are sure they are right would like to dismantle this system because they can't tolerate the existence of other citizens who disagree with them totally. Spoken like a true self-righteous Utopianist tyrant. Hitler could have said that about the necessity of taking Germany back from the Jews and the Communists. Communists say that about conservatives and capitalists. EVERYBODY is trying to save the world and humanity itself.

Also starting more neighborhood Christian schools. But in any case leaving the public schools to themselves and going our own way.

Concerning "faith based" {edit: correction} education: In America the first schools were started by Christians and used the Bible and church catechisms for teaching grammar as well as moral principles. The first universities were founded by Christians for the purpose of educating the clergy -- Harvard, Yale, Princeton and others -- and besides theology of course, chapel attendance was an integral part of the experience. I only wish we still had Christians of the caliber of those men as I think we need to start a whole new alternative university system.Actually there is reason to believe that the idea of universal education was begun by Christians in Europe, and certainly the first European universities were Christian just as America's were. Education is a specifically CHRISTIAN objective that's been co-opted by the secularists in the last century or so.Concerning Utopia, I use the term in its casual sense, to refer to any intentional social system based on an ideology of the perfect way people should be, that prescribes a change in human nature. Marxism IS one such system. Communism in all its horrors is what always comes of the attempt to impose an ideology on human beings, who simply will not bend to such attempts to mold them against their own nature -- and therefore must be intimidated, persecuted and killed to make the system work. It's procrustean with a vengeance. You have to leave people to be people, and manage them as little as possible.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-24-2005 01:50 AM

Even life and growth of living organisms is winding down, according to us creationists, or at least according to *my* extrapolations from /understanding of, Biblical creationism. There is still a strong principle of life left that can launch a new generation, but with each generation we lose a bit more of the principle of life to the principle of death -- except that we now have modern medicine that helps us maximize the life principle still available which, while being a great blessing, also creates an illusion by obscuring the overall degeneration. I cannot argue this scientifically so if you want to chat about it on the Coffee House forum and promise not to browbeat me I could at least try to explain what I mean from a Biblical point of view. Or the Theological Creationism and ID forum perhaps, which allows the development of the Biblical reasoning involved.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-24-2005 03:25 AM

Others have answered this quite well, but I'd just chime in that it's a choice between indoctrination by parents or indoctrination by the state. The parents love them. There is no tyranny involved in the normal parenting function of passing on their wisdom to their children. You may disagree with their wisdom but that's not your place.The biggest problem in this discussion is the absolutely inflexible position on the part of some on the "science" side of this argument that casts the religious side in irredeemably evil terms. Even the most generous on your side nevertheless can't bring themselves to consider that any part of our point of view is possibly RIGHT, but I guess we have to take what we can get.

Thanks for the thoughtful message. I've saved it to answer tomorrow. Good night for now.