anthrosub
Posts: 843
Joined: 6/2/2004 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: dark~angel Intelligent design is as much a religion as christianity or any other belief system. Religon has a place in schools as much as science has. It gives people choice. In amy country, the majority religion comes at the forefront of all religions taught. The difficulty comes when only ONE way is pushed. I had a discussion with my childs teacher at the parents evening.We were discussing what is taught. Like the majority of schools in the UK, Christianity is the main focus, with topics covering buddhism, Islam, taoism, hinduism...etc... In the later years, if you take RE as one of your core subjects, you study the differences between the two major religions in the area. Now I was explained that for where we live, this is Christianity and Islam. I thought this was really strange and remarked on it. In my area, there is one Mosque. There are 10 Buddhist temples and the majority belief in my local area is pagan and wicca. We have a huge druid following as well as holistic and 'natural' followings. Intelligent design and objectivism is also taught. I am not sure if you have children anthro, but there is a huge falicy that religion taught in schools is onesided, at least here in the UK, its taught diversely. Maybe you could contact your local schools or education facilities and find out exactly what is happening locally for you if one is that concerned on how the future generations are being taught. Ultimately its up to parents to teach their children anthro, or at least let them experience different points of view. My children have celebrated diwali, and my son (because its just been is birthday) is studying about a boys bar mitzva. Being christian doesnt blind my children and stop them from involving themselves in different faiths or belief systems, including Intelligent design. Peace and Rapture Dark~Angel, I always enjoy our exchanges. To start off, I don't have any children just so you know. As far as religion having a place in schools...I agree and hope you saw that what I was pointing out as an issue is exactly what you're saying about having ONE religion pushed on people. Having intelligent design introduced in a science class is not a choice. Regardless of the posts here bringing up the questionability of what truth is, the bottom line with intelligent design is it's not science and doesn't belong in a science class. There's no empirical evidence of intelligent design. Instead, it's being slipped under the door on the basis that science doesn't provide a 100% explanation of existence, which it can never do and the ID advocates know it (as do the scientists). As an example of the infinity of learning, think of astronomy. We have incredibly sensitive telescopes that can look deep into space but no matter how much further we can see, all we end up with is knowing that there's much more out there to see. The same thing is happening in the opposite direction (sub atomic particles). It's gotten so we cannot see beyond a certain point because the matter attempting to be observed is smaller than the wavelength of light. Plus, it's getting difficult to tell if what is being observed would be behaving the same way if we weren't looking at it because the lightwaves influence what's happening. This raises questions about objective observation which is a big issue for the scientific approach. Back to religion, I rejected it outright at the age of 8. But became very interested in it once I was in my late teens. I was grateful to be able to approach religion with a mature, discerning intellect instead of having it imprinted on me while going through my developing years where I would have no choice. Choice! That's the difference that ultra-religious people fear. Destroying the ability to have a choice is the only way they can 100% guarantee avoiding obsolecence. anthrosub
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"It is easier to fool people than it is to convince them they have been fooled." - Mark Twain "I am not young enough to know everything." - Oscar Wilde
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