Should we teach both evolution and religion in school?

That sounds like a Comparative Religions course.If it is taught as Anthropology that would be very useful.And it should not be taught as Religious Studies. As it is often practiced, I think that approach would also introduce a bias.Further, it should not be taught by a leader of any particular religion, as that could introduce a bias. One possible exception might be a Jesuit, as they are generally very well educated and usually can present cogent arguments for a variety of positions.

---

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Well, in my cases it was Episcopal Priests teaching the subjects. We did have a few Rabbis come in, one Imam and also one Buddhist Monk that I can remember.

---

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

I would not favor such a teaching staff, as it does not have the analytical and hands-off/disinterested party approach that really pays off in this circumstance. In a worse-case scenario it could become a competition to capture new members for one's beliefs.That is why I suggested the approach be Anthropology. (I had such a course in grad school, but the subject matter could be adjusted to other levels.)

---

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

i propose that evolution NOT be taught at all. after all as one evolutionist pointed out, evolutionary scientists use 'artificial experiments' to make their case. artificial does not mean real: in fact i know that evolutionary scientists have NOT replicated one claimed change by the process of evolution. they can't for they do not know the original conditions that brought upon the claimed changes, they do not know all the failed attempts by the process to achieve said claimed changes, they do not know how those changes came about.plus they themselves are not part of the original conditions which means any experiment for evolution is moot, for scientists did not create those claimed changes in the actual process of the supposed evolution nor brought the original claimed changes to existence.in other words, they are nor 'repeating one change' which means evolution is disqualified from the scientific classroom.

Arch -- your post is a total non-sequitur. It has no relationship whatsoever to my post.My post dealt with a potential curriculum and approach for a Comparative Religion course.Care to try again?Edited by Coyote, : formatting

---

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

I'm sorry, but I was greatly amused that you would even go so far as to ensure that your dictionary was cleared by a Christian organization. That is something that I would expect from a writer of satires about the berChristian community.May I suggest that you have been read the wrong scrolls? Or at least that you would benefit greatly by expanding your scroll reading list? For example:

quote:

---

Sun Tzu, Scroll III (Offensive Strategy):
31. Therefore I say: "Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.
32. When you are ignorant of the enemy but know yourself, your chances of winning or losing are equal.
33. If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril."
(Sun Tzu The Art of War, translation by Samuel B. Griffith, Oxford University Press, 1963)

---

And also a non-scroll source, the Governor of Mississippi, circa 1990, give or take a few years, quoted here from memory from a radio newscast at the time. He was explaining why he was campaigning so hard for education reform in his state:

quote:

---

We know that ignorance doesn't work, because we've already tried it!

---

So, I've been noticing that you've almost exclusively been using ignorance in your posts here. How's that been working for you? I'm sure that it works well for you when you preach to the choir (America's leading atheist, Dan Barker, also found that as a fundamentalist preacher he could say almost anything at all and his fundamentalist audience would buy it very enthusiastically. And I'm sure that you can confuse and confound your ignorant opponents and even some of your learned opponents who are unfamiliar with creationist nonsense (the general situation in the 70's heyday of the ICR's travelling debate show, but then their opponents started studying "creation science" and started turning the tide circa 1980), but it doesn't even begin to fly with us who are familiar with your nonsense, does it? That's because ignorance does not work, as even a past governor of Mississippi knew all too well.Why really do you not want evolution to be taught? Your feeble attempt at an expressed reason only generates the rolling of eyes. It's really because you see it as conflicting with your religious beliefs -- to be fair, while it really does not conflict with theism in general nor with Christianity in particular, it does conflict with the theology of a particular minor subset of Christianity. Apparently yours.Now, please try to concentrate here. What is the expressed purpose of science education? Is it to compell belief? No, that is your purpose in education, to indoctrinate children in your narrow theology; you are only projecting there. The expressed purpose of public school education, not just science education, is understanding. And it is expliciticly not to compell belief. Was my example of the United States Air Force's education of its non-commissioned officers in Communism not sufficient to demonstrate that very simple fact?Now, just why do you not want your children to learn about evolution? About what evolution really says, as opposed to what you try to tell them that it says? Do you not want your children to oppose evolution? Do you not want your children to fight against your chosen foe, evolution? Do you not want to give them everything you can to support them in that fight? Then why do you wish to keep them ignorant about evolution? You are directly sabotaging any chance at success that they might have! Why would you deliberately sabotague your own children like that?I believe that I know why you would take such a counter-productive course of action. Because you know full well that you are lying to your children about evolution. Yes, you think that you have been well-meaning, but you know that there will come a day when your children will come home and tell you, "Now I know what evolution really says. And you lied to me! If you lied to me about that, then what else did you lie to me about? About the Redemption? Why should I ever believe you again?"arch, I have read the testimony of many atheists. So many of them were lied to by their religious leaders.At this point, I would like to thank you personally for your outstanding contribution to the spread of atheism. You have no idea how much you are contributing to the future of our species!

Had much experience with Episcopal teaching priests?But I have no problem with the issue of teachers, as long as the subjects are taught in a neutral manner.

---

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

How do you know this?You do realize that when someone is asked to review a paper for a reputable scientific journal, theyhave to provide a detailed analysis of it along with reccommendations for improvements, fatal flaws, etc., don't you?Not reading the paper makes that step rather impossible.Also, scientists reviewing papers for publication are not supposed to do replications. Replication happens by other labs who read the papers after publication.

Do you accept that DNA is the basis of heredity?Edited by nator, : No reason given.

I am perturbed, flabbergasted, and disturbed by the continuing efforts of misguided (to the point even of committing perjury in ‘Dover, et. al.’) and scripturally incorrect religious people to foist their misconceptions, under the guise of ‘scientific theories’ (creationism, intelligent design, etc.) upon the educational system. In addition to the obvious damage and hindrance to our educational curricula, these attempts are a huge misrepresentation of spiritual realityEvolution as a scientific discipline must be divorced from the associated parent philosophy Uniformitarianism which was in vogue preceding it for reasons which have been discredited since. Evolution is a valid scientific discipline, Uniformitarianism is a disproven philosophy and school of thought. Uniformitarianism has intruded and embedded itself into scientific thought and thus skewed many considerations of cosmology and astral physics from being objective and empirical. Never mind poor old Emmanuel Velikovsky: While the evidence that he was considering was and is relevant and valid, his derivations (due to his great lack in correct scientific methodology) and conclusions were far amiss. He thus did a great disservice to the school of astral catastrophism, and set back its credibility immensely.The most recent conclusive disproof of Uniformitarianism is this(Coverage to the public was broadcast on a segment of Nova in the last 12 months):1. In the past decade (survey completion in last 3-4 years) a radar/topological mapping satellite of improved precision surveyed the surface of Venus.2. Recently formed (even of possibly historical times), non-eroded craters were found in large and significant quantities on the surface of Venus, craters which were not the result of volcanic activity, but of astral catastrophism (meteoric impact).3. When a renowned (I didn’t take note of his name, due to the following) uniformitarian astrophysicist was interviewed for his opinion he said: Well, I don’t see how Uniformitarianism can ever possibly explain these craters. But, nevertheless, I’m not willing to give it up.4. Gentlemen, this is not objective, logical, scientific methodology. Scientific methodology requires that when the derived conclusions of your theory are found to be false in light of the evidence, then you either discard the theory or, if possible modify the flawed part of it accordingly. To cling to it after it has been disproved is not objective, it is religious domaticism.Creationism per se in all of its multi-farious manifestations, since it invokes to some extent and at some point a supernatural genesis of species, is thus by its very nature incapable of being a scientific discipline. That being the case, creationism has absolutely no place whatsoever in any scientific textbook.PaulamessageforthehumanraceEdited by Adminnemooseus, : Add blank lines between paragraphs.

Did that make sense in your head?

Kids should only learn about religions in school that their parents say are okay for them to learn. I don't want my son to learn about religions that I don't want him to be exposed to yet. Obviously few parents will want their kids to learn about witchcraft in their science class (just an example). I know that when my son is an adult he will have the sense to reject any of witchcraft's theories. But kids are impressionable. Teach the kids more about the religions that their parents have exposed them to. The best way to do this would be to seperate the kids into different classes based on what their parents want them to learn.I'm not a religous zealot, I don't think religion should be taught in the science class (but creation science should). Of course religion would only be taught in literature, philosophy, art, and music, since religion basically creationed those subjects. You can't teach art without the Sistine Chapel.Edited by OpticalIllusions, : No reason given.

Why?The purpose of an education is not to learn what you want to learn or what your parents want you to learn, it is to learn in particular what others don't want you to learn. Education is to learn how to challenge ideas, think critically, test your beliefs.

Hi OpticalIllusions, and welcome to the fray Why shouldn't kids be exposed to all sides of a question so they can explore the differences and make up their own minds? Then you shouldn't expose him to any, otherwise you are biasing the information being presented to benefit your views. Why not? We can teach kids that what is portrayed as "witchcraft" is actually a misrepresentation of other religions and show them what those other beliefs actually say. We can teach them to identify straw man and ad hominem logical fallacies, and encourage them to form opinions based on facts instead. Because you intend to keep him from the truth about other religions and only feed him biased information? Which is why you should not try to take advantage of that in your own teaching. Why? Don't their parents teach enough, don't their churches teach enough, so you want assistance in providing biased information?If you have kids from a variety of religious backgrounds do you teach about all those backgrounds? So we could group them according to which parents want their children to be gullible ignorant and biased, and those that want to learn how to make decisions based on evidence and facts? But your policies appear to be those of a zealot in what you want to see in school. Good, because religion is not science, founded on evidence, it is faith, founded on belief without evidence. There is no such thing. There is either science or not-science. These can all be taught without having to introduce religion, and where religion does impact these fields it is a small part of the overall picture that should be presented in them.Of course this would apply to ALL religions, as no one religion has had more effect than the others.Curiously, the best place to teach about religious impacts would be in a comparative religion course, covering as many different religions as practical. Nope. This is the kind of unsupported assertion that is made by religious zealots. And again, this is just the kind of unsupported assertion that is made by religious zealots.Enjoy.

We already have places that will do that. In fact, they don't even charge an attendance fee. They are called "churches". You should look into it.Why do we need public schools to teach religion? Why do you want the government in the evangelist business? That seems like a recipe for disaster.