should creationism be taught in schools?

Fact, not falsehood. No it isn't -evolution was proposed as an alternative to creation based on fossils found in rocks and finches showing natural selection -Darwin's old story. Before Darwin, it was proposed by geologists that the fossils and the sedimentary rock layers must represent long ages (rather than a flood, of course -nobody really liked that old flood story and they were in a hurry to replace it with something more 'scientific' ). This was taken on faith by those that could just see that the rocks were old and could imagine how long they took to lay down. A very long way down that path of faith-based age assumptions came the sort of dating techniques that just happen to confirm those sorts of ages in complete contradiction to those aging methods that say that is not so. Absolutely untrue. You obviously have not read the literature, the model that has been proposed and the voluminous evidence in its favour. Perhaps you don't really want to know because there's plenty of it out there -how could you have missed it? Even if evolution was shown to be wrong, evolutionists in general would be more likely to go for anything other than the creation model because they don't appear to want to have anything to do with the creation possibility.Creation is written off a priori by definitions of science designed to avoid that possibility.There's something about a creator that causes the majority of mankind to become willfully blind.
"..in the last days, scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say 'where is this coming he promised?' Ever since our fathers died everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.But they deliberately forget that long ago, by God's word, the earth was formed out of water and by water.By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed."
Have we forgotten?Is this evolution the grand delusion of the end times that we are being indoctrinated into from childhood? You should really see how many of the other end time prophecies from the same creator are all lining up - evolutionists will remain blind to what is happening around them as long as they insist that creation is a plebian non-viable, unscientific proposition from a bunch of ignoramouses of the first order.Time as we know it is running out. Wake up!!

I've spent hours reading on creationist websites, and I've never come across a scrap of scientific evidence for creationism.There's plenty of evidence of superstition and fantasy desires, though. Perhaps you're confusing the two.On the subject of this thread, there's nothing in creationism to teach in school science classes. It would be exactly the same as teaching a flat earth view in geography classes.

I'm just curious, Beretta. Instead of the theory of gravity, what would you propose we teach in its place?

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Owing to the deficiency of the English language, I have occasionally used the academic jargon generator to produce phrases that even I don't fully understand. The jargons are not meant to offend anyone or to insult anyone's intelligence!

And yet you posted another message that contained NOT ONE SINGLE THING IN SUPPORT of Creationism.Biblical Creationism is such a joke. Your little god is not even capable of creating a model much less a universe.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Evolution doesn't need to be viewed as an alternative to creation. It certainly does not conflict with the idea of creation nor with the idea of a Creator. Nor even with the idea that that Creator is YHWH (for the spelling of that name, read jar's avatar). Though it would conflict with some narrow interpretations of what "creation" must mean, especially those interpretations that make assertions about the physical universe that are contrary to fact.Do you believe that evolution conflicts with the idea of creation? Why? Since you are so absolutely sure, that must mean that you do in fact know of dating methods that support a young earth without using special pleading. Do please present them. If creationists actually some real evidence, why have they kept it hidden all this time? There is an actual creation model? Really? We've been looking for one for decades and trying to get creationists to present one for all that time.Oh please, do present it! And some of that "voluminous evidence in its favour".Why have you never presented it before? You completely missed the point there. For all these decades, the creationist approach has been to create a False Dichotomy (AKA "a 'false dilemma'") which artificially and deceptively claimed that there are two and only two mutually exclusive choices such that disproving one would automatically prove the other. Then all that the creationists would do was to attack their strawman caricature called "the evolution model" and thus claim that their own "creation model" had been proven, all without ever having to present this "creation model" or any evidence for it, or discuss their "model" or in any manner try to support it. Indeed, I have found that the surest way to anger a creationist was to take his claims at face value and try to discuss them with him and try to get him to support them. Incredible how utterly hostile they would become because somebody was trying to take them seriously.No, the point that you missed is that every model put forth must stand on its own merit. Each model must be examined and judged according to the evidence. Just because one model is eliminated does not make another model right; each model must be examined.Therefore, even if you were able to show evolution to be wrong, that would do absolutely nothing to show your "creation model" to be right. Your "creation model" would still need to be examined and tested, just like all the other models. As pointed out by philosopher of science Larry Laudan in his article that Dr. Duane Gish thought was so great, the claims of creationism have indeed been tested and they have been found to be wrong.From "Science at the Bar- Causes for Concern" by Larry Laudan, from Science, Technology and Human Values 7, no. 41 (1982):16-19, reprinted on pages 351-355 of Michael Ruse's But Is It Science. It refers to McLean v. Arkansas, the famous 1981 Creationism trial; my copy of the article provided to me by Dr. Duane Gish:

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At various key points in the Opinion, Creationism is charged with being untestable, dogmatic (and thus non-tentative), and unfalsifiable. All three charges are of dubious merit. For instance, to make the interlinked claims that Creationism is neither falsifiable nor testable is to assert that Creationism makes no empirical assertions whatever. This is surely false. Creationists make a wide range of testable assertions about empirical matters of fact. Thus, as Judge Overton himself grants (apparently without seeing its implications), the creationists say that the earth is of very recent origin (say 6,000 to 20,000 years old); they argue that most of the geological features of the earth's surface are diluvial in character (i.e., products of the postulated worldwide Noachian deluge); they are committed to a large number of factual historical claims with which the Old Testament is replete; they assert the limited variability of species. They are committed to the view that, since animals and man were created at the same time, the human fossil record must be paleontologically co-extensive with the record of lower animals. It is fair to say that no one has shown how to reconcile such claims with the available evidence- evidence which speaks persuasively to a long earth history, among other things.

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In brief, these claims are testable, they have been tested, and they have failed those tests.

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The only reason for rejecting young-earth creationism is because the claims of creationism have been tested and have been found to fail those tests. In other words, that dog won't hunt.But if you are so absolutely sure that there is a real creation model with "voluminous evidence in its favour", then do please present it.Edited by dwise1, : added reference to jar's avatarEdited by dwise1, : corrected typosEdited by dwise1, : removed extraneous sentence fragment at end.

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{When you search for God, y}ou can't go to the people who believe already. They've made up their minds and want to convince you of their own personal heresy.
("The Jehovah Contract", AKA "Der Jehova-Vertrag", by Viktor Koman, 1984)And we who listen to the stars, or walk the dusty grade,
Or break the very atoms down to see how they are made,
Or study cells, or living things, seek truth with open hand.
The profoundest act of worship is to try to understand.
Deep in flower and in flesh, in star and soil and seed,
The truth has left its living word for anyone to read.
So turn and look where best you think the story is unfurled.
Humans wrote the Bible; God wrote the world.
(filk song "Word of God" by Dr. Catherine Faber, No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.echoschildren.org/CDlyrics/WORDGOD.HTML)

You seemed to skip over most of the content in my post and just reply with more falsehoods, unsupported assertions and outright nonsense.If Creationism was taught in school, what would you teach about all of the civilizations that were thriving approximately 6000 years ago, on every continent?If Creationism was taught in school, what would you teach about how sand was formed?If Creationism was taught in school, what would you teach about the great Bantu migration?If Creationism was taught in school, how would you explain Oetzi who would have been alive during the supposed lifetime of the fictional character Adam? How would you explain that genetically, he, all the things he carried, all the things he ate, all the things he wore were pretty much the same as today?If Creationism was taught in school, how would you explain salt beds?Can you produce any evidence that stands up to examination for Biblical Creationism?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

The evidence for an ancient earth is not even the topic of this thread, so I really hope you and jar aren't going to get into an extended "is not, is too" about this.This topic asks whether creationism should be taught in schools, so you first you need to know why it currently is not. That reason is that creationism is understood to be religion and not science.Creationists claim that creationism *is* science that should be taught in school, but what is taught in school is the consensus of scholarly opinion, and there is not at present a scientific consensus in favor of creationism. Physics and chemistry and biology (including evolution) are taught in science class because there is a scientific consensus behind them. Creationism is not taught because no such scientific consensus in its favor exists, and to teach it in school would be to teach something not currently accepted as science.So the next question to ask is why creationism is not accepted as science by the scientific community, and it basically comes down to a lack of evidence. The scientific community examined creationism's evidence between a hundred and a few hundred years ago and decided it was lacking. And that's why the scientific community rejects creationism and why it isn't taught in school.--Percy

You certainly seem to have a great many criticisms of evolution, Beretta, but why should any of that mean that creationism should be taught in schools? You have mentioned nothing (save for bible excerpts) to argue in it's favour. If you are so keen to educate us upon the merits of creationism, why not provide us with some of this copious evidence you mentioned?
Simply, creationism should not be taught in science lessons because it fails to fulfil the definition of "science" used by the scientific community. When the creationist lobby insists that ID is science, they are effectively trying to redefine the word "science" in a disingenuous way.
Religious believers do not suffer from scientists lobbying churches and temples to redefine the word "god" or preach Boyle's Law from the pulpits, so why should religious groups be allowed to dictate what is taught in science classes?
Most religious pupils already get plenty of religious education from their places of worship and their families. Pupils who independently seek religious instruction will find it easy to come by. The real aim of creationist lobby groups is to win over non-Christian pupils or those doubters amongst their own flock. It is simple proselytising, and it has no place in the classroom.

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Mutate and Survive

This isn't true, and, which you may think rather worse, the audience you're preaching to knows that it isn't true. Which for some reason you refuse to talk about.What are these "aging methods" of which you speak?Start a thread. Start a thread. Start a thread. Ooh, love the apocalyptic sermon. A wannabe preacher, eh?But can you name one of these "aging methods"?Put up or shut up.

While we await, with bated breath, details of at least one method that proves that the Earth is young, here's a list of real dating methods that actually exist.

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I don't think there's only one story but I absolutely believe there is only one that makes sense, that has loads of historical and archeological verification in its favour and lines up with the evidence -not as well as evolution -better than evolution.

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Well, other religious people think their creation story is better than yours, based on their own faith-biased opinions.If we teach one faith-based Creation myth, we have to teach them all.And I would really like to know if you think that Biologists are stupid. Edited by nator, : No reason given.

Oh, really. Yeah it might make sense if the earth was a small, fixed object in the center of the universe and the universe was small enough
so all the heavenly bodies could revolve around the earth every 24 hours or basically what was believed by the men who conceived the story.

So you KNOW you are dismissing other beliefs as irrelevant and want others to accept yours without question? Do you know what "special pleading" means?Can you tell me why something you believe should be taught as fact, particularly in a science class (it could be fine in a comparative religion class)? Absolutely false. Now you have the opportunity to prove me wrong by presenting evidence.No evidence = no rebuttal.Note the concept of "both" is a logical fallacy of the false dichotomy.There is reality or there are any number (millions) of fantasies.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : one more for the road

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My point precisely -why should your belief system be taught as fact? Why not the opposing scientific evidence that points to the very real possibility of a creator rather than variation and random mutation creating things that I can only say are exquisitely designed by someone way beyond us. By limiting ourselves to evolution as the only possibility when there is so much evidence against it, you effectively force your belief system down the creator camp's throats and in the process lead children away from the option that the God of the Bible may be real.'Scientists have proven that evolution is a fact'.Children brought up with the Bible start to look again and somewhere in their subconscious as some point, they realize that if evolution is true, the Bible is untrue -people who hold to both are compromisers.The creator goes out the window with His word to the stupid people.I did that -I know what I'm talking about. When I realized, only in the recent past, that evolution is not proven, it is believed -it all made sense.Fossils are facts -they cannot speak for themselves -you have to interpret what they mean according to what you believe is true.Evolution and creation/ID are interpretations of the facts.
Your interpretation should not be the only one allowed. I do not mean at any stage that anything untrue should ever be taught -only that the evidence for and against both positions should be allowed. Not a specific creation story either just the ID position and the evidence against evolution. Well now we're on the same page.

Luckily the Bible doesn't require that we be right in the middle.