Article: Religion and Science

As weird as it is to say. I actually completely agree with Faith on this issue. Thank goodness that I am also in agreement with ifen and GDR. This will also mark the first time I have really ever disagreed with jar. What is happening, the world is turning inside out! The government has no business interfering with how parents raise their children short of clear cases of abuse and neglect for 1 very important reason. That reason is simply that there is no objective way to determine abuse except through proof by clinical analysis. We accept a certain level of physical punishment as acceptable towards children when it comes to spanking but not more than that because it can be clinically defined as abuse. The same goes for mental abuse. Trying to define something like religious abuse or indoctrination abuse would be so vague as to make it meaningless and any law based on that definition runs the risk of impinging on freedoms.The moment you say that you cannot teach kids that 2+2=5 by law then you also cannot tell kids that Santa Clause is real. Even though I disagree with both of those positions I firmly believe that parents have a right to teach their kids both of those things. Teaching a kid to kill themselves the next time they see a comet has permanent physiological implications that can be rigerously defined. Beliving in the flood or the tooth fairy does not.Moreover, this leads to a slippery slope that has the potential to eliminate the teaching of all metaphysical beliefs to our children. It is not that far removed to say that you cannot teach a child about a particular god because that god is supposidly not real. What is the objective difference between any given god and santa clause? Nothing.A free society means that almost everyone is going to be exposed to something they do not like or something that is not necessarily good for them. This goes for children as well. Parents are the stewards of their children and in a free society can raise them how they see fit within the bounds of the laws of that society.Making it illegal to teach YECism to children is un-American.

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Thanks. Nice catch on the contradiction on child ownership by the way. This is all rather silly actually. It is scary sometimes when I see some of the soothing liberal voices on this board take a turn for the worst. For the most part they do a good job it is just every now and they can go off and say crazy stuff like this.

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Just to be precise, you really should say the Establishment Clause because there is no mention of the seperation of church and state in Bill of Rights. In particular this would not only violate the first ammendemnt with regards to "or prohibit the free exercise thereof" when this situation regards religion it also violates the freedom of speech. Also, although there is no explicit constitutional ammendment defining parental rights this situation should really fall under the ninth ammendment as a non-explicit right which is also supported by the loads of legislation regarding parental rights.

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You are right! I am sorry for including you in that list. Your posts just flowed so nicely with Brian's it seemed like you were agreeing with him. I appologize.

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Parents teach their kids falsehoods all the time. There are 3 common mythical figures that parents often teach their kids are real, Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy. Parents tell their kids that if they watch too much TV that they will go blind. There are all kinds of things that parents tell their kids often knowing that they are complete lies. Whether or not is in good concience depends on what concience the parent has for those things.I personally think it is a shame to teach your kids about santa, the EB, the TF, and God, tell them later that the first 3 are not real and expect them to believe that the 4th one is real. That is why the first three of those will not be part of what my kids ever consider real.

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No argument here, as long as the children know it is fantasy. I agree that it is important for children to be exposed to fantasy as long as they are not taught and continually re-inforced that their fantasy is real. Of course that is my opinion. I am not so convinced that it is dangerous to society as long as they are not trying to push it into govn't and schools. I would really have no problem with literalists beliefs if they weren't trying to push their agenda like they are.We will always need people to fill the roles in society that don't require extensive education. I am perfectly happy to let the willfull ignorant fill those roles.

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I don't understand. There was no insult intended in my post which you replied to.

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I took a break and the last two pages of posts rolled by before I had a chance to reply.I will continue to back you up on your point about parenting and education.I also think that you and jar are not arguing different points. I made the same mistake when I thought he was advocating a legal solution to "the problem" as it were. I have found that sometimes jar can be less than explicit in his posts.What he is arguing is that the literalist position needs to be fought on the same front that it is using to force its agenda. You may not agree with this but the point is that I don't believe that jar ever proposed making literalism illegal or even that literalists should not have a voice in the decision making process. jar was just proclaiming that the literalists need to be fought because their agenda is as anti-American as the situation that Brian was proposing.So in essence you two were both talking about the exact same thing in spirit. You want to keep the freedom for a literalist like yourself to have a say. Jar wants to make sure that the opposite does not occur, that an extreme literalist agenda does not contravene freedom.Go back and read it again. You might even get a good chuckle. At least in this regard you are both being good Americans just at opposite ends of the pendulium. At least that is what it seems like from my perspective.You can be quite reasonable sometimes Faith; which is very confusing....This message has been edited by Jazzns, 06-24-2005 12:13 AM

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Certainly! I know a very bright engineer who is a YEC.My point was merely to address the worst case scenario of living in total willfull ignorance that was presented before. There are varying degrees ignorance and the minimum amount required to be a YEC does not preclude you from holding a position in society that requires an education.That being said, a product and an eager member of a part of society that indoctrinate against science due to some percieved religious conflict will necessary preclude some people from attaining jobs that require a certain education. I know people like this as well. I eagerly support their life choice and freedom to continue to raise their families in their traditions. I also take heart in the slight increase in job security they provide those of us who choose to take the plunge to learn about those evil sciences.

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It is interesting to recognize when our ideas coincide. I can't really think of another time they have other than this one but it may suggest that the polarity of our arguments are blinding us all a little.You also have to understand that many of us have often had to deal with a certain amount of legitimate wackjobs. Although we are still interested in the issues, there is a sense of disenchantment when someone comes in here thinking they are going to overturn the foundations of science with a few brazen quotes a la Kent Hovind.If your goal is to create understanding then there is already a bar for which you must aim much higher than to earn any credibility past the quote mining, plagiarizing, outright lying counterparts on your side of the fence. I'll leave my own opinion out of this but there seems to be a certain amount of contention as to whether or not you have achieved this. Even though you occasionally produce some of the standard YEC fair, it is my opinion that you are not a run of the mill YEC.The point of all this was to address your statement that "we" never consider that you might be right. My point is that it is a little disingenuous to assume this given that most of us involved in this debate have already gone through much of what your consider "right" before; maybe even in the turmoil of religious crisis as was my case.It is not just that your ideas are being rejected out of hand. It is that they have been considered before, often with extreme care and reverence due to impact on religion, and been repeatedly rejected in this venue and others. Before I ever started posting here I studied and prayed ferociously about the issue. When these issues were new to me I hung onto every word of the debate. Now though, when someone brings up something like the "no new genetic information" argument I have to admit that I roll my eyes a little bit and think, "not again!"It is possible that recognition of this may help alleviate some of your misgivings. I certainly have made a conscious effort to be more patient with my arguments. To what degree I have been successful is up to the readers to decide.This is a difficult medium to discuss a diametric topic. Not only is the communication difficult at times but the history and previous experiences of the participants is always an X factor that can either enlighten or derail a discussion.

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