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Bush: intelligent design to be taught in schools


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President George Bush has started a national debate in the US over the teaching of evolution in school.

 

The president has suggested that a theory known as "intelligent design" should be taught in the classroom.

 

It proposes that life is too complex to have developed through evolution, and an unseen power must have had a hand.

 

President Bush's championing of intelligent design will be interpreted as further evidence of the growing influence of the religious right.

 

The US president told newspaper reporters in Texas that children should be taught about intelligent design so they could better understand the debate about the origins of the universe.

 

Intelligent design differs from biblical creationism in that it is not tied to a literal interpretation of the biblical book of Genesis.

 

Nevertheless, intelligent design points to the role of a creator, and it has become increasingly influential in Christian circles.

 

Scientific arguments

 

Yet even those on the religious right, such as Republican Senator Rick Santorum, are cautious as to how it should be taught.

 

"I'm not comfortable with intelligent design being taught in the science classroom," he says.

 

"What we should be teaching are the problems and holes, and I think there are legitimate problems and holes in the theory of evolution."

 

The debate, though, is already having a real impact.

 

In Kansas, the board of education has been re-evaluating the way evolution is taught - a sign that more conservative politicians and officials want to reflect the theory of intelligent design.

 

Many scientists insist, though, it is just that - a theory.

 

Alan Leshner, the chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says that the proponents of intelligent design are "trying to cloak a religious concept in the mantle of science".

 

"There is no science to intelligent design, it's not even a scientifically answerable question," he says.

 

In 1925, the Scopes trial marked a defeat for creationists and opened the way for evolution to be taught in US classrooms.

 

Eighty years on, intelligent design is offering the creationists new comfort.

 

Once again, they are putting evolution on trial.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4136690.stm

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im not religious at all, ive studied intelligent design theory at uni, and i dont think its a bad thing to teach it as a THEORY to students that are old enough to be able to question things and not take everything on face value. definitely shouldnt be taught in science class htough

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and I just went to the Discovery Institute's website and skimmed some shit about ID.

 

 

the funny thing is that they keep quoting and mentioning Darwin, Darwin, Darwin, like he was some religious kook like John Smith or L. Ron hubbard...

 

 

The truth of the matter is, is that evolution as a theory was first proposed thousands of yaers ago by the Greeks. darwin and some other guy first proposed a modern theory of HOW things evolve, not whether they do or not.

 

And most importantly, our current understanding of evolution was actually first identified by a Catholic monk: Mendl, who observed genetics in plants...

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I think a good part of the motive for bush to do this now is to show that he really believes that he did his contreversy actions becasue god told him too.. and so doing this will show that he wasnt just saying that to find any excuse but he really believes it that much..

 

on another note is was thinking.. do you think its possible that matter and energy was never created just change form..? i mean it seems people's logical explanation for god is becasue everything that exists needs a creator? why would we think that? is it a lot do do with us seeing humans "create" (mix things that laredy exist and build seeminlgy new things) so we kinda think there has to be an analogy to the existence of everything? im not on any side really just questioning..now

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Guest KING BLING
Originally posted by yum@Oct 13 2005, 05:34 AM

im not religious at all, ive studied intelligent design theory at uni, and i dont think its a bad thing to teach it as a THEORY to students that are old enough to be able to question things and not take everything on face value. definitely shouldnt be taught in science class htough

 

 

I think a world religions class in high school would be appropriate as long as the curiculum is closely monitored to weed out bias.

 

Design theory though is a joke - a responce to evolutions conflict with the idea of an Eden created by God. It was developed to give a scientific looking face to religion.

 

What confuses me is that people who take evolution as an afront to the Old Testament version of creation must by there belief in that portion also support all the slavery and brutal punishments listed within it. We had a conversation here about it previously - for the religious among you, how do you support the Genesis portion without also supporting the "be a good slave" and "kill all the pregnant women who appose God" portion of the Old Testament?

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the old testament was written by exiled jewish scholars as a way to write down their oral traditions and give definition and meaning to their culture that was in serious position to be lost. Even back then it was never really meant to be taken literally...allegory in other words...

 

biblical literalism arose during the dark ages in Europe as a way to justify serfom and the Divine "Rights" of the Catholic Church and local lords and kings...

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Guest KING BLING
Originally posted by John Birch@Oct 13 2005, 06:35 PM

the old testament was written by exiled jewish scholars as a way to write down their oral traditions and give definition and meaning to their culture that was in serious position to be lost. Even back then it was never really meant to be taken literally...allegory in other words...

 

biblical literalism arose during the dark ages in Europe as a way to justify serfom and the Divine "Rights" of the Catholic Church and local lords and kings...

 

 

Thats very interesting...any resources you can offer on the matter?

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sorry this might be a silly or offtopic question but just want to write it before i forget.. if god supposedly exists outside of time then how can he judge? i mean thats an action(s) that hes doing.. which includes changing of some form.. so isnt that contradictuary? is it possible to do actions and changes of some sort outside of time?? if so please let me know with a little bit of backed up reasoning cause i stumped myslef.. thanx (and if he could then coundnt we be acting outside of time? whats the differnce)

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Guest KING BLING
Originally posted by theillp@Oct 13 2005, 06:52 PM

i think its good both sides are presented as a theory casue it casues people to think for themselves and realize there isnt certainty (unless you add faith (towards 'god' or athiesm) but you can question that by looking at your (desired) motives for beliving it...

 

 

I disagree. In this case its like taking a Cadillac and a cardboard box with 4 wheels and calling them both cars. They might share the same name and shape, but one works and one is a box with wheels.

 

I agree that religion shouldn't be banished from the educational system, and in fact it isn't. The people that support design, however, hate evolution and want religion taught as fact. How many court descisions barring religious iconagraphy, forced prayer, and Chrisian specific teaching need to come down before the Christian Right decides that if they want there kids to go to religious school they need to pay for it or home school and stop stuffing it down the throats of other less religiously inclined individuals...

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Guest imported_El Mamerro

The funny thing is that intelligent design can open the doors to some really solid discussion about the current state of human knowledge on the origins of life, but the way people on both sides are behaving are making it absolutely impossible. On the one hand we have these people idiotically trying to shove the theory into school curriculums with no reasonable evidence, and on the other we have people reacting ignorantly towards the concept (IT'S ALL A BUNCH OF CREATIONISTS WHO WANT TO "PROVE" GENESIS!!!) without even bothering to consider the implications involved by it because they simply loathe anything even remotely having to do with religious belief.

 

This is a fucking absolutely insane universe, where some of the proven theories require just as much stretching of the imagination as any religious mythology to agree with, but our constant "I'M RIGHT YOU'RE WRONG" attitude keeps us from even considering this peculiarity.

 

Now I agree we have every reason to believe ID is a wolf in sheep's clothing, but man, take it fucking easy. I honestly can't see an honest, respectful discussion on ID leading to a slippery slope that will put Adam and Eve on our biology textbooks. There's people out there still trying to disprove general relativity and quantum theory but I don't see anybody up in cahoots about it. Once science proves something, it is its very duty to continue trying to disprove it for eternity to ensure its validity through the ages. But when the alternative in question has some vaguely religious tone to it, holy fucking shit, it's the stupidest goddamn theory ever created. Fuck, maybe it is, but it's still a fact that we can't just sit back on a theory we've found that works perfectly for the time being, because we enjoy the comfort it brings.

 

I'm a firm believer in evolution, and an even firmer believer that it should be tested, questioned, and attacked from every possible angle. If it takes some scientific-sounding religious kooks to get this shit going on a large scale, then so be it. I don't think this would be such a big deal if deep down, for the majority of people, this whole thing made a bit of sense on some level. But we're too scared of shattering our righteous secularity to even consider it, and would rather shoot it down by pointing fingers and screaming at evil religion trying to shove their wacky beliefs down our throats. And I agree, this in no way should be even considered to be taught at schools. But shit, man, it deserves discussion no matter what you believe in.

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word thats what i ways saying..sorry King bling maybe you misinterpreted what i was saying (my fault ) becasue when i said "that there isnt certainty" i meant amung humans.. im not saying there isnt a right answer that exists.. im saying tht whtever the right answer is were still uncertain of what it is...

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Guest KING BLING

Mams and others...

 

I come at things hard because I have strong opinions. But to clarify, my outlook on religion and the origins of things is far from made up. I often think the two would be mutually compatable if looked at more generally and not seen only through the text of the bible or a microscope. My best friend whom I've mentioned here before is a Christian Scholar - he can break down virtually any issue and he is a strict creationist who can referance academic sources that punch holes in evolution and support his religious ideas of creationism. I respect him and his ideas offer genuine merit without falling back on changing language to hide his intent. What I hate is not Christianity or disputing my ideas or accepted theories, what I hate is deceipt to win at all cost in the name of Jesus - Design should not be ignored outright, but is not being introduced for the right reasons nor with adequate support as a testable "theory". Religion and creationism should be taught in a philisophical or historical context in schools with parents and community encouraging further spiritual growth.

 

Honestly though, we have to call a duck a duck - just because a majority beleives something, or something carries a certain title does not mean that one must accept it. If viewed objectively design is creationism, and God as fact (even if by inference) has no place in the classroom even if he doesn't come with that title. Start teaching kids that aliens could have designed the world or that we could be living within a dream as part of the "inteligent design" classes and maybe I'd concider it as anything but religious teaching by a diffrent name.

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Originally posted by theillp@Oct 14 2005, 03:06 AM

sorry this might be a silly or offtopic question but just want to write it before i forget.. if god supposedly exists outside of time then how can he judge? i mean thats an action(s) that hes doing.. which includes changing of some form.. so isnt that contradictuary? is it possible to do actions and changes of some sort outside of time?? if so please let me know with a little bit of backed up reasoning cause i stumped myslef.. thanx (and if he could then coundnt we be acting outside of time? whats the differnce)

 

that question would be easily summed up by saying that God is capable of all things at all times without restrictions. To place restrictions on God by saying that he can't do such and such because

he is outside of our time frame, well he created time and is perfectly capable of doing what he pleases with it.

P.s. How did you guys start this discussion without me? were you trying to sneak this one by me? LOL

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Originally posted by KING BLING+Oct 14 2005, 03:24 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (KING BLING - Oct 14 2005, 03:24 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-theillp@Oct 13 2005, 06:52 PM

i think its good both sides are presented as a theory casue it casues people to think for themselves and realize there isnt certainty (unless you add faith (towards 'god' or athiesm) but you can question that by looking at your (desired) motives for beliving it...

 

 

I disagree. In this case its like taking a Cadillac and a cardboard box with 4 wheels and calling them both cars. They might share the same name and shape, but one works and one is a box with wheels.

 

I agree that religion shouldn't be banished from the educational system, and in fact it isn't. The people that support design, however, hate evolution and want religion taught as fact. How many court descisions barring religious iconagraphy, forced prayer, and Chrisian specific teaching need to come down before the Christian Right decides that if they want there kids to go to religious school they need to pay for it or home school and stop stuffing it down the throats of other less religiously inclined individuals...

[/b]

 

they could never force religion on non religious people in a place like America. Don't you realize kids don't even have the right to pray in schools anymore? I know kids in public schools who pray during school hours and have to have special notes from the religious establishment and parents to get permission from the school. Don't worry, they wont be teaching kids christianity in schools anytime soon.

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You know , the odd thing I keep seeing is that when people speak about creationism vs. evolution they usually use christianity as the main source of reference in support of the creationist theory. But there are other beleif systems that people can look to for a way to bridge the gap between this divide in outlook. For example, I was mentioning in another thread, We know that things evolve, this is a scientific fact, things evolve and change throughout the years. This is proven. Although that does not mean that these things evolved from nothing without the intervention of intellegent design. So it seems (to me at least) that evolution and intellegent design are both working on the same team, so to speak, and one theory supports the other , rather than opposing eachother. I mean, how hard is it to beleive that an Intellegent being created, maintains, sustains and provides for this universe without taking away from the facts that man has gathered about the workings of it?

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Originally posted by Dawood@Oct 14 2005, 10:46 PM

they could never force religion on non religious people in a place like America. Don't you realize kids don't even have the right to pray in schools anymore? I know kids in public schools who pray during school hours and have to have special notes from the religious establishment and parents to get permission from the school. Don't worry, they wont be teaching kids christianity in schools anytime soon.

 

 

Maybe in your schools or the schools you see on TV, but mine was different. When I was in public high school I was forced to sit through a christian prayer session around once a month at least. I was not forced to pray along with them but I was definitely treated poorly by the teachers involved and the christian students because I didn't.

 

They have to be such bastards about banning prayer completely because otherwise the religious nuts will try to sneak it right back in, like they did in my case. Fuck all of them.

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I gotta agree with most of yall on here. I think this is being brought up for the wrong reasons. Seems like anytime an issue becomes politicized it becomes a shell of it's former self and filled with bullshit.

 

I definately agree that ID should not be taught in the science classroom. Maybe in philosophy, or sociology, or world religions or something but definately not science. Exploiting acknowledged holes in scientific theory and filling them with supernatural aether does not constitute good science.

 

Sure it seems improbable that life randomly evolved, and even our most powerful supercomputers could not model the conditions under which this may have happened, but nature itself acts like the most powerful supercomputer in the universe.... well actually it is. All of life is a progression of permutations in the course of evolution.

 

I personally believe in an intelligent designer, as do many in intelligentsia, and even many of our founding fathers, in the form of Deism, but I cannot ascribe myself to this current form of the intelligent design argument since it is obviously insincere and of impure motive.

 

In fact, I would even go so far as to say that we should destroy all of our idols. Iconoclastic dialectic discourse, something the Dadaists had hoped to accomplish, but it shouldn't stop there, we need a reinvention of culture in the wake of all this capitalist commodification. The tyranny of organized religion over the minds of men needs to end finally. We need systemic reforms in education that will inform and enlighten, not bore and deaden human curiosity with disparate facts out of context with reality. It is the rich tapestry of all existence that makes learning exciting...

A quote from Breton:

Everything tends to suggest that the mind may reach a point whence life and death, real and imaginary, past and future, communicable and incommunicable, and high and low, all cease being perceived as contradictory.

But rather, complementary, and interdependent.

 

It is the Age of Aquarius. It is a time to reacquaint ourselves with the spirit, after centuries of religious upheaval, discredit, and finally destruction in the face of scientific discovery.... it's desperate whoring and outright lying in a world overrun, taken by storm, by Capital and Commodification.

 

The world is becoming smaller, more crowded all the time, more desperate, more insane. All the more reason to create a HUMAN CULTURE. One we can all claim and feel a part of. For those of us severed at the root by ethnicide this may be all we have.

Let it be known that I wholeheartedly embrace syncretism, that dirty word in the monotheistic (monopolistic) traditions. The religions that sought to quash the secret worship of far older gods through a pantheon of catholic saints, such as in Ireland, or Brazil. We all know there is one lord over all, if you would have stopped to ask then you would have understood. The age of Christ, of Pisces, the symbol of Christ, the Fish, is OVER.

Help usher in the Age of Aquarius, we desparately need it NOW!

This Golden Age is destined to synthesize all religious regimes and free the minds of ignorance and delusion forever. Once enlightened, each human being will begin his or her individual journey within, and strive to become the new race of super conscious humans awakening seekers of Truth and the eternal Spirit, healing peoples of many tongues and nations in the process. In this new millennium there will be no more falsehoods or derision, but spiritual living and third-eye vision. The Human Family is truly entering the Age of mystic revelations and the mind's true liberation which is broadly known as spiritualism.

The "New Age" is actually a synthesis of many different beliefs and currents of thought, the emphasis being on a rejection of the limitations of reductionist materialism and an emphasis on the way that one can alter one's personal reality through the application of belief, visualisation, and positive affirmation. In a sense it is a spiritual awakening, an activation of the "theosphere", an integration of holistic healing, alternative spirituality, esotericism, environmental sensitivity, alternative life-styles, awareness of other dimensions of existence, and attunement to the cosmos.

Quotes taken from this very interesting site that I have just stumbled on:

http://www.adishakti.org/age_of_aquarius.htm

 

Apparently the Age of Aquarius corresponds with the opening of the seventh chakra, the crowning of evolution. We have made it through the narrow path of the sixth, of the Fish, austere and steadfast against the growing tide of desire from empowed materialism. Now is the time to transcend. Transcend dogma and it's co-conspirator imperialism. Transcend the ego constructs. A return to the water, our true, innermost self, our primordial beginnings.

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i agree that creationism doesnt have to come with christianity obviously... what we see as designs seem to need an explanation (as good analogies are made betweeen us designign things so what about all the rest, however i dont think its as good of an analogy for something comming out of nothing (if that ever happened) because humans cant do that)

 

but what about 'gods' design to his character? isnt that just as mind boggling no? likewise dawood how hard would it be to believe that everything was always here in differnt forms.. (i belive in a dvine source) just makin that argument.. sorry forget about that last statement.. but what about gods designer? why doesnt it need one? surley god has a design..

 

 

oh and about the time thing.. if something performs action/change.. doesnt that require time???? (this part of the action vs the other pat of the action are seperated by time).. g

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I'm not touching villians post with a ten foot pole , LOL....... thats some serious work you got there, villian

 

theillp, I don't beleive that everything was always here in different forms because of the simple principle of life and death. Everything has a beginning and an end......Except God. Thats what makes him God, and if God had a "designer" or something that created God, then that thing would be God. The way I see it, everything will die except God. And everything was born or created or sprouted or grew except God. And again, thats what makes him God. If we think that God is bound by the laws of his creation, then we take away some of his Godly qualities, like being capable of all things. And about the time thing, I'm not following your logic on that one.

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Originally posted by Dawood@Oct 15 2005, 09:32 AM

I'm not touching villians post with a ten foot pole , LOL....... thats some serious work you got there, villian

 

Haha... serious as a heart attack my brother.

 

theillp: It is a very ancient metaphor, the creation of something from nothing. Emptiness is the blank canvas (or wall) upon which God creates.

And time is relative as well. Not only is our own perception of time pliable, but time to God is absolutely meaningless. Think about time for us, it is completely dependent on our being here on earth exactly where we are at, absolutely relative and subjective. If we are on the other side of the world, time is different, if we are in outer space time slows down, and so on and so forth... see what I'm getting at? Time is not an absolute principle.

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Guest KING BLING
Originally posted by dowmagik@Oct 15 2005, 09:00 AM

how on earth can a school "ban prayer"? do these schools have mind readers who zoom in on students whose minds are speaking to their god(s)? sounds like an obsurd claim. if your prayer requires the notice of others, it sounds to me like you're doing it for the wrong reasons.

 

I agree...

Though this is the image the psycho right wants you to see - a little blonde haired kid tears from his big puppy dog blue eyes running down his face with jesus looking on in disgust while some liberal lesbian principle with fangs and a tail hits him and rips the bible from his hand - its simply not the case. You can pray in school, hell many schools allow for you to walk right outside the grounds to go to seminary or other religious programs. Its the school itself pushing, or allowing broad proselytizing of religion, that is not allowd. Kids can wear crosses, pray before eating and carry bibles with them - but when you force kids to go to school, its not fair to than force religion upon them and more so it defies the intent of our governmental frame work...

 

 

Also, I think everyone should take there philisophical / religious posts and put them in the 4000000 pages "Nature of..." post...

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