ACLU Vs Creationism

  • Thread starter Thread starter HagiaSophia
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
40.png
Catholic2003:
If you are trying to say that “intelligent design” is the statement that evolution is incorrect, you need to be more precise: “That some complex organisms cannot possibly be formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, each of which provides an evolutionary/reproductive advantage.”
This is quite a bit different from saying that the human eyes or brain evolved from silly puddy (or some other matter - insert here).

Even if you don’t want to teach ID as science, how can you justify teaching evolution (as it is taught in schools) as science when there are numerous unanswered questions - the conclustions drawn are simply outrageous in light of only that which we know by scientific method.
 
40.png
gilliam:
I may have, but intellegent design doesn’t, and you know that.

I guess I am out of my league scientifically here. Maybe someone else can point you in the right direction here?

Why are you so afraid of intellegent design? You are a Catholic are you not? You do believe in God do you not? Couldn’t God cause a design? Definately a theological possibility. Until evolution is proven as a Law and not simply a theory, it needs to be taught as a theory amoungst a number of theories, not as a law. Personally, I don’t fear evolution, but I don’t fear intellegent design either.

I can see atheists fearing intellegent design, but I really don’t understand someone who says they are a Catholic fearing it.
This sheds some good insight into the problem of scientists limiting themselves to one sacred theory rather than looking into other things or how their theory may be flawed - why do you have to continue to try to justify something? Why can’t disproving something be science? Had to happen with Aristotle, correct?
 
40.png
HagiaSophia:
The American Civil Liberties Union will file a suit today challenging a Pennsylvania school district that teaches alternatives to the theory of evolution alongside Darwinism…On Oct. 18, the Dover school board voted 6-3 to add the teaching of “intelligent design” to its ninth-grade biology curricula. Without identifying who the “designer” might be, the theory of intelligent design says the complexity and order of the universe and mankind suggest the action of an intelligent cause rather than random chance…
Everyone seems to be missing the point of this lawsuit. The Constitutional question we all need to ask ourselves is what did the framers really mean by “establishment”? And I don’t think the answer should be “whatever judges say it means”. The question is too important to leave it up to such a small group. To the framers, an established religion was supported by the government, and other religions were suppressed (e.g., either by outright persecution or by requiring those who hold public office to be members of the established religion, etc.) This was the kind of thing that was going in Europe at least since the reformation, and also in the colonies. So to them, the word “establishment” had teeth. And those teeth had been the cause of much bloodshed. How does presenting a theory of “intelligent design” among other theories have teeth? How does a cross on the LA County Seal have teeth?
 
40.png
miguel:
Everyone seems to be missing the point of this lawsuit. The Constitutional question we all need to ask ourselves is what did the framers really mean by “establishment”? And I don’t think the answer should be “whatever judges say it means”. The question is too important to leave it up to such a small group. To the framers, an established religion was supported by the government, and other religions were suppressed (e.g., either by outright persecution or by requiring those who hold public office to be members of the established religion, etc.) This was the kind of thing that was going in Europe at least since the reformation, and also in the colonies. So to them, the word “establishment” had teeth. And those teeth had been the cause of much bloodshed. How does presenting a theory of “intelligent design” among other theories have teeth? How does a cross on the LA County Seal have teeth?
You are correct. This isn’t about the government establishing a religion. It is about secularlists getting rid of God and His morals.
 
40.png
Brad:
Good point.

This shows what I have always been suspecting. Religion always has been in schools - it’s just that now it is paganism instead of Christianity.
Never thought of it that way. The state religion being paganism. How come the ACLU isn’t suing somebody over this?
 
40.png
Brad:
I mean really, how do we know the difference between 1.1 billion years and 500 million years.
Lots of resources on this if you are interested in learning about them.
They say they are finding fossils this old? Sorry - they’d be dust particles scattered in the atmosphere after 500 million years.
What do you base this statement on?
Another vast oversight by the scientific community (because mainstream science continues to undermine the existence of God - you may say you believe but you have to check much of this belief at the door and discount chunks of scipture to be a respected scientist today) is that they don’t consider the possiblility that the universe was created aged.

In other words, do you think, when God created trees, he created them all at 1 mili-second old? Certainly he could create rocks that appear to be 300,000 years old using our flawed human dating systems that science knows are flawed.
Wow. Another manifestation of God - God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit and God the Deceiver!

Peace

Tim
 
40.png
Trelow:
So the nuts and bolts is that you don’t believe that it should be mentioned in public schools that intelligent design is one of many possibilities?
Not in science class.

Peace

Tim
 
40.png
lewri:
There is NO actual physical evidence of humans being anything other than humans.
Wrong.
Many pieces found supposedly belonging to humans “millions of years ago” have been found to be a 1930’s girl or whatnot.
Wrong

Peace

Tim
 
40.png
Trelow:
So just because you can’t test something voids the possibility of it’s truth, scientifically speaking?
Not being testable would prevent an idea from becoming a scientific hypothesis or a scientific theory.

Peace

Tim
 
40.png
Trelow:
But wouldn’t the best time to present other theories be at the same time you are discussing origin of man? Even if these other theories are not-scientific?
So you would be ok with non-scientific theories? How about Hindu or Buddhist or Native American or Ancient Egyptian or Wiccan?

My answer would be no. If they aren’t scientific, they should not be discussed in science class.

Peace

Tim
 
40.png
Orogeny:
Lots of resources on this if you are interested in learning about them.
Sure - try me.
40.png
Orogeny:
What do you base this statement on?
The “common sense” method. Also known as observation of things in nature over a span of 10 years and extrapolating that over 500,000,000 years.
40.png
Orogeny:
Wow. Another manifestation of God - God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit and God the Deceiver!
God’s a deceiver because everything did not come out of nothing with no divine intervention? Everything came out of nothing with no something as a cause? He’s not a deceiver. He’s an intelligent designer. He’s not too worried about impressing scientiests however.
 
The Hidden Life:
Isn’t the basic problem with most science as taught today that it presupposes there are only natural/material causes to things?
That is what science is - a study of natural things. The supernatural cannot be dealt with by science.

Peace

Tim
 
40.png
Orogeny:
Not in science class.

Peace

Tim
That’s right. We only can teach science as fact that which can be proven false later. Just like Aristotle taught that heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects and was proven false thousands of years later - that should have been taught as non-disputable fact for thousands of years.
 
40.png
Orogeny:
Not being testable would prevent an idea from becoming a scientific hypothesis or a scientific theory.

Peace

Tim
The problem we are arguing is not that the ACLU doesn’t want ID in science class - it is that the ACLU doesn’t want ID in ANY class. Most scientists agree because evolution, if disproven by any discipline, would discredit a holy grail of science.

Would you allow ID to be taught as, say, philosophy class, at 1:45 right after science class?
 
40.png
Brad:
Catholics have every right to disagree with large portions of evolutionary theory based on science and their faith.
Catholics have every right to disagree with all of evolutionary theory if they so choose. Any reason will do.
We also have to discount, at minimum:

The idea that humans came from some other species - this opens the door for the undermining of everything in the faith dealing with the moral code - the key to salvation and eternal life. This part of evolution (which isn’t really what even Darwin concluded) is what most kids come away with understanding, as they don’t go into great detail of the science - young minds wouldn’t be ready for it.
They cannot and should not come away with this understanding - it flies in the face of God - and that is why the ACLU wants it - and nothing else - taught.

The fundamentalists - although much of their Biblical scholarship is in error - understand the reasons for defending certain truths (such as we are made in the image and likeness of God) and that is why they are so vigorous in their defense.
So you are saying that science cannot be used to discount evolution. If you discount the evidence if it leads you to a conclusion other than your initial conclusion, you are no longer doing science. This is exactly what those “scientists” at Answers in Genesis do. Here is the Faith Statement that every “scientist” must sign to work for that organization. answersingenesis.org/home/area/about/faith.asp

Peace

Tim
 
40.png
Orogeny:
That is what science is - a study of natural things. The supernatural cannot be dealt with by science.

Peace

Tim
Then science shouldn’t be taught. If it takes a naturalistic premise (there is no God), then it is going to ignore large portions of reality that infinitely more relvant that the definition of gravity or the chemical components of sodium.
 
40.png
Brad:
So what you are saying is that something that has been taught as science for 1,000+ years (Aristotle example) can be proven wrong one day.
Yep.
So, tell me again - why should the 4,000+ years of moral teachings from the Bible which never change (and which can be proven scientifically to lead to a much healthier (phsically and mentally) - if followed - be trumped by the teachings of science, which may say all their stuff is way wrong in 1,000 years or so?
Moral teachings of the bible are not trumped by science. Science and morals are two different realms.

Peace

Tim
 
40.png
Orogeny:
Catholics have every right to disagree with all of evolutionary theory if they so choose. Any reason will do.

So you are saying that science cannot be used to discount evolution. If you discount the evidence if it leads you to a conclusion other than your initial conclusion, you are no longer doing science. This is exactly what those “scientists” at Answers in Genesis do. Here is the Faith Statement that every “scientist” must sign to work for that organization. answersingenesis.org/home/area/about/faith.asp

Peace

Tim
No. I think science should be used to discount evolution as much as it is used to promote evolution. If the evidence leads to disproving it, it should be followed. However, whenever a scientist proposes that evolution may not be true, they are condemned by the scientific community as not credible. There is an unwritten “faith statement” that scientists and many other academiacs must sign to gain credibility.
 
40.png
Orogeny:
So you would be ok with non-scientific theories? How about Hindu or Buddhist or Native American or Ancient Egyptian or Wiccan?

My answer would be no. If they aren’t scientific, they should not be discussed in science class.

Peace

Tim
Hello Tim,
What about critiquing the idea that life evolved from inanimate matter? That idea has been proposed by scientists. I mean, what mechanism did inanimate matter use to construct itself into a living critter, with all the functions that a living critter would need (e.g., food capture, digestion, reproduction, etc.)? If science has demonstrated such a mechanism, I’m not aware of it. Inanimate matter would need a competent understanding of these functions to be able to do that. Of course this is absurd. But it’s a whole lot less absurd to believe that there had to have been an intelligence behind it.
 
40.png
Brad:
Sure - try me.
How about starting with an easy one dealing with the age of the earth?

asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html
The “common sense” method. Also known as observation of things in nature over a span of 10 years and extrapolating that over 500,000,000 years.
Hmm. How do you calibrate that method?😉

What observations have you made that lead you to your conclusion?
God’s a deceiver because everything did not come out of nothing with no divine intervention? Everything came out of nothing with no something as a cause? He’s not a deceiver. He’s an intelligent designer. He’s not too worried about impressing scientiests however.
You are the one who proposed that God made things old to fool us athiestic scientists, not me. I agree, He’s not a deceiver. That having been said and agreed on, please explain the incredibly large volume of evidence pointing to an old universe and earth and towards biologic evolution.

Peace

Tim
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top