Should we teach both evolution and religion in school?

Sure, I get where you are coming from, and yes, the majority in the US who do not believe in evolution are religious. In Australia, most don't care about evolution at all, and are not religious.I like science, I like method and the protocols with peer reviews etc, but I don't agree on a few approaches, which are based on majority assumptions.
That's not the fault of science, but just the way people do things, its sociological.

But you care today, because just a few days ago in Message 557 and Message 573 you told us that you discovered a 1958 penny beneath a neighbor's demolished house, that it was radiocarbon dated to 2500 years old, and that this was the foundation of your rejection of radiocarbon dating methods: Having had serious (indeed fatal) doubt cast on your main objection, what do you think of radiocarbon dating now? Scientifically this calls for a reassessment, but you haven't changed your mind, right? Which is fine, that's your right, but it's not scientific. Things that are true over 99.9% of the time are pretty safe assumptions. Scientific thinking is independent of everything but data and evidence. It would make no sense for a scientist to announce, "As an independent thinker thinking out of the box I have arrived at a theory of gravitation where objects fall up," because all the evidence says he is wrong." A scientific consensus forms around a theory only when the evidence becomes sufficiently persuasive. Thinking independent of the evidence would get a scientist nowhere, because without evidence he would have nothing to persuade other scientists. Lack of evidence is behind the failures of ideas like creation science and intelligent design.So data and evidence (i.e., reality) form the only constraint on scientific thought, which is independent in all other ways, within the constraints of human nature.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.Edited by Percy, : More grammar.Edited by Percy, : Correctly provide source messages for the first quote.

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It's interesting that if someone does not believe in evolution, that they are automatically labelled as religious.

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It is apparent that you believe that the Earth is about 6000 years old and that there was a global flood in that period - and I don't think that it's a coincidence that such beliefs agree with a literalistic reading of Genesis. You have said: "Genuine Biblical studies are not philosophical, but the beginning of faith..."Your objections to evolution are not even the main reason you are considered to be religious.

Of course not and to even think that is true is simply an indicator that the person who holds such beliefs is willfully ignorant at best, possible just delusional and more likely simply a liar or conman.Many religious folk understand the earth is at least 4 billion years old, modern man appeared at least 50,000 years ago and that we are simply the result of evolution. More utter bullshit. Science evolves through independent thought and to deny that is simply at best a case of willful ignorance although it could possibly be delusion. Most likely it is simply lying or an attempted con job.

Not sure why you would state this, because obviously you are religious and you are a religious fundamentalist. Your dismissal of accepted scientific consensus is based upon religious belief and faith. Why are you trying to bullshit us? Only fundies beliefs about a god are threatened by evolution. Most people, religious and non-religious, do not think the two have anything to do with each other.Why don't you just accept and proclaim your christian fundamentalism, or are you a ashamed of it?

Ah, so you can't verify that it was the penny that was dated to 2500 years ago as claimed in Message 557. Not surprised.So your whole reason for distrusting radiocarbon dating (according to your claims) rests on a probable mix-up and misunderstanding of which results went with what objects.Now an open minded skeptic looking for independence in education would ask about other sources of information on testing objects for age where there was better control of the experiments\tests so that honest results could be compared and valid conclusions could be reached.For instance, a scientifically thinking person would ask:
1. can the 14C/12C levels of the coin be replicated?
2. do the results mean the coin is 2500 year old?Enjoy

One might also ask where the carbon14 and carbon12 came from since the Australian penny is 97%copper, 2.5%zinc and 0.5% tin.

The analogy was only intended to illustrate a different point of view to Colbard. He seems to have taken the point but rejected the "lesson" for unrelated reasons. The analogy, therefore, is a success.If you don't like it, boo hoo. I think I already mentioned that the analogy doesn't work in an old-universe/young-earth scenario. That's a position that Colbard doesn't take (I think), so your comments are irrelevant. In Colbard's view, the nails, wood, brick, etc. were all created in the same six days, so the analogy stands.

You can't think "outside the box" constructively until you understand the box. People who don't understand carbon dating, for example, have no business thinking independently about it.

You did not answer my questions about that "experiment". We need to know the full story. Again: Seriously, when you submitted that coin, which contained no carbon, to be dated with a test that measures the quantities of isotopes of carbon, did you not realize that the test would not work on that coin? If you didn't know any better, then why didn't you know any better? If you did know better, then why choose to submit that coin?I can think of a few different scenarios of what might have happened, but we still need for you to inform us of what actually did happen:

1. Your teacher had in fact not taught you anything about radio-carbon dating or else had severely misinformed you of it. This would have been the typical action of a creationist seeking to deceive his audience (even if he actually believed in that deception himself). In this case, you would have been misled to believe that radio-carbon dating should have been able to date any object.
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   or,
2. Your teacher was not a creationist, but didn't understand the subject matter himself *. As such, he wasn't able to properly teach what radio-carbon dating is nor how it works nor what it's based on. He probably didn't know any of that information himself. In this case, you were the victim of your teacher's own incompetence.
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   or,
3. Your teacher did in fact understand the subject matter and did provide proper instruction about radio-carbon dating. The problem was with your own inattentiveness and incompetence as a student. You didn't pay any attention in class and completely missed out on the information that was being taught. In your own gross ignorance of radio-carbon daing, you chose an entirely inappropriate object to be dated.
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   or,
4. Your teacher was competent and knowledgeable, but he was testing the class's understanding of the subject matter (part of pedagogic technique is, after all, testing and evaluating how well the class had learned). This test was conducted by a mock submission of items to be dated in which the students should have chosen suitable items. This would have been similar to a test question I was once given: "You have an ancient coin with a date stamped on it, "67 BC". Do you have any reason to doubt its authenticity?" Since you had chosen a totally inappropriate item to be dated, that means that you had failed that test. You had learned nothing about radio-carbon dating.

So then, which scenario depicts what had happened? Or was it a different scenario?BTW, that the "test" came back saying that your coin was 2500 years old is further evidence that those items were never actually tested. A sample that contains no C14 would come back with the maximum age for the test, which is about 50,000 years. Being a light element, C14 has a short half-life. That also makes it only suitable for dating relatively recent samples such as are found in archeological sites, but completely unsuitable for dating geological formations. C14 has absolutely no bearing on the age of the earth.{* FOOTNOTE:
Unfortunately, this happens far too often. When a school can find a teacher who is knowledgeable in the subject matter, then they will use that teacher. But if such a teacher is not available, then the job will go to an unqualified teacher. The philosophy in effect here is that a teacher has been trained to teach and should be able to step in and teach any subject matter so long as he has adequate teaching materials at his disposal. We were told of an imposter who had posed as several professionals (think of the movie, "Catch Me If You Can"); he found the role of college professor the easiest because to pull that off he only had to be reading the textbook a few chapters ahead of the students.Fortunately, this kind of situation exists mainly in smaller school districts (eg, in rural or isolated areas) which have a much smaller pool of teachers to draw from. Back around 1990 there was a case in which a creationist biology teacher, John Peloza, sued the Capistrano school district for violating his religious rights -- his entire argument was based on twisted and confused creationist rhetorics, much like what you've been presenting, and his case was not only thrown out for being frivolous, but when the appeals court reviewed the case because they were sure that the lower court couldn't have been right, even the appeals court threw it out as being frivolous. It turns out that John Peloza was actually a physical education (PE) teacher and wasn't qualified to teach biology. His college degree was in PE and his Masters degree was in Education, for which his thesis was on coaching softball. He was teaching on Catalina Island when the high school needed someone to teach biology, so he either volunteered or was assigned to that task. After that, he was classified as a biology teacher, even though in his own education he had only taken the bare minimum required biology courses. During his legal battle, I heard him speak: everything he said came straight from the "creation science" literature. This story has a happy ending, since Peloza was sent back to teaching what he had trained for, PE. Though he did have to pay all legal costs, because he had filed a frivolous lawsuit, and he swore he would not do pay; I have no idea how that turned out.
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What you describing above is exactly the breaking point for your analogy. The universe works that way, yes. But we never build houses that way. Every artificial house is built from external materials. The age of those materials is not the age of the house.And given that your analogy breaks at exactly the point that you are trying to illustrate, your analogy stinks.

An idea or a belief considered to be evidence can come from a vast network of interrelated ideas and findings, so that we end up with a web of knowledge, which is undeniable - through nearby evidences, in any location,
and yet the whole thing could be based on a single falsehood that no one dares to challenge, because of its vastness, age, general alignments and most of all co-dependencies.If the whole thing is based on some falsehood, it has to have a system of defense for those living in it, and that system of defense could very well be the same means to extend its web, - logic, reasoning, philosophy, testing whatever.This ensures that those defending the web are more securely attached to it, as they defend it.But the defenders, don't believe they are threatened, even though they are acting that way. The simple mention of creation causes very long speeches, great investigations and backup, forensic analysis, interrogations even of minors, screaming "delusional" and so forth. And of course lots of reviews about other "delusionals."If the web was truly secure it would not be so alarmed at the opinion of someone who is obviously "delusional."Why would it be necessary for a whole brigade to pounce on a "delusional" with lesson sticks if the suspect is of no consequence to the system?Interesting isn't it?There is a saying "If you throw a stone over a wall at a pack of dogs, you know you have scored a hit by the ones which make the loudest noise."It seems to me that science has a bug in it which does not belong there. While claiming to be open minded etc, it is too sensitive and defensive about itself.
It reminds me of the dark ages, when the church righteously torched someone who differed in thought.
Who could argue with the church? Its members were prominent educators, trusted professors with honors and degrees, sound familiar? It had all the evidence for its own standing and yet it was fully evil.

The oppressive and evil reign of the Papacy ended up causing the French revolution which swung into atheism, rather than at the cause of its rebellion alone, which was a false system of religion.So now we have two false systems which are incompatible, and yet working together to keep the masses in two camps.The falsehood of science is the dismissal of God, and genuine religion, and the falsehood of religions has been to dismiss God as well, by teaching errors about God.So the argument about whether creation and evolution should be taught in schools together is endlessly spurred on by two dysfunctional systems.Creation should be taught scientifically without the theory of evolution, and without the falsehoods of established religion.

That's not true. You should rephrase this; it might be closer to the truth:'Pretending that creationism is science and religious fundamentalists forcing creationism into science classes, cause very long speeches, great investigations and backup, forensic analysis, interrogations even of minors, screaming "delusional" and so forth. And of course lots of reviews about other "delusionals".'You forgot to mention court cases.And so it should. Your carbon dating of a coin is a great example why it should be so. You don't even know the basics of the method. And I (along other on this forum) suspect that you didn't tell the truth about dating that coin for the very obvious reasons mentioned in other posts. Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

What a word salad, meaning nothing in the end. Lets start at the beginning. First he starts with a straw man about how science works.Colbard starts: Wrong in so many ways. Beliefs (in a religious sense) are not scientific evidence. It seems as if his whole 'argument' is built on this. Fail.Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.