Inteligent Design & Darwinism in Schools

Alright, a few things.

First, red shift hardly proves that nothing just exploded for no reason. Christians don't exclusively believe that the big bang never happened, but simply that it didn't happen all on its own without any help. You see, the big bang assumes that something has existed for an infinite amount of time prior to now. However, for something to have just always been is not scientific. Now, Christianity believes that God always has been, and since God is a supernatural being not constrained by the normal rules of science, this is ok. The problem with science vs religion on the origin of the universe is that both need something to have simply always existed, but one cannot believe that something has always existed.

Now then, I'm surprised to see arguments about how Jesus never existed. Because last I checked, the myriad of Jewish, Roman, Christian, and other historians who mention Jesus in their writing isn't something you can just ignore. It's not quite, but almost as absurd as claims that the holocaust never happened, or that Jews never controlled the land of Israel before the 1940's. If every single Bible were to be burned and purged from everyone's memory, we could pretty much reconstruct the entire Bible from both religious and secular historical documents. I'm pretty sure that, miracles all aside, Jesus was at the very least an actual man who actually existed, was actually executed for heresy and stirring up the people, and whose body actually disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Now then, back to macro evolution vs creationism. You see, the problem is that while there is some evidence of macro evolution, there are also things that seem odd, like the fossil record going from practically blank to quite full in what we call the Cambrian Explosion. Science's explanation: snow ball earth. Quite frankly, I don't believe that slightly elevated levels of oxygen in the atmosphere would cause life to just suddenly come out of no where in mass numbers. So, if you are looking for evidence, but not proof, here's a little evidence for creationism. It isn't the best, but then, I'm doing this off the top of my head rather than spending time researching the scientific pros and cons of creationism, mainly due to laziness.

Also, on the origin of life, I believe that macro evolution does go over it, though I'm not quite clear on what exactly it suggests on how exactly life got here. Really, the main differences between macro evolution and creationism are intelligent design, age of the Earth, and mutation vs addition of genetic complexity. I would even go as far as to say that, as a creationist, I believe that natural selection can progress to a point where the mutant species can no longer give birth to fertile offspring with the initial species, creating a new species. However, these two species are of the same complexity level. So the main problem creationists run into with evolution is the advancement of species, rather than the mutation of species.

What is important, however, is that most everyone here, aside from NT, was taught macro evolution in high school, and was taught it as absolute fact. I've heard that in college, evolution is approached with a grain of salt and treated as theory, but at the high school level, teachers seem to be very adamant about it being fact. That is where I take issue. I don't mind it being taught in school, but at the very least, I want it to be part of the curriculum that it is made clear that evolution is not fact, that science is never fact because the very goal of science itself is to disprove itself and achieve a higher understanding of something, and that there is no such thing as fact or perfection in science.

yup, pretty much, rot lol

It's weird that I live in California and i get the most realistic, impartial education I've ever heard of, despite the fact people seem to think California teaches all kids that gays are cool and god doesn't exist.

My Highshcool barely even covered it, and when we did our teacher rushed through it because she didn't want to get into this kinda shit lol



She taught the way the school said, but did a VERY brief review of the other sides cause she wanted to teach it fair.

Rot wrote:First, red shift hardly proves that nothing just exploded for no reason.

But it tells us that everything in the Universe is moving outward from a central point which, last time I checked, is frequently to result of an explosion.

Rot wrote:God is a supernatural being not constrained by the normal rules of science, this is ok.

Sounds to me like a BIG fucking cop-out. Can't figure out how the universe began? Lets throw in a magical being, void of all scientific jurisdiction, capable of doing ANYTHING. You've got a real sound theory there rot.

Rot wrote:Now then, I'm surprised to see arguments about how Jesus never existed.

The point I was getting at is that while science is based off of tangible evidence that is available to us today, the only evidence for intelligent design that Civ can seem to muster up is a 2,000 year old guy for whom the extent of his existence is debatable.

Rot wrote:What is important, however, is that most everyone here, aside from NT, was taught macro evolution in high school, and was taught it as absolute fact.

Put me on the list with NT. Only Micro evolution is taught as absolute fact in most schools...

Rot wrote:science is never fact because the very goal of science itself is to disprove itself and achieve a higher understanding of something

Great, so we can stop basing arguments for god off of disproving scientific theory?

RT, don't get mad just because you cant disprove the idea f there being a god.

How do you know god didn't cause the big bang? Last I checked, something like that could hav e drastic effect on time, and could turn seven billion or seven trillion years into seven days in some cases.

lol

Im just saying, you can't actually prove that god doesn't exist(or does for that matter) so you cant go around and teach "there is no such thing as ID, only evolution" in schools.

but its SCIENCE class. They teach stuff and theorize, not just say "God did it" and move on.

Im saying they should briefly touch on both.
In classes today its not "This is a theory" its "This is the fact"

looka t your average textbook and thats about what it says

Well i sated many times both are intertwined since i belive god (or whatever you want to call him) that he put the bacterira and other germs in this universe and helped push them along to become what they have today.

Seath wrote:RT, don't get mad just because you cant disprove the idea f there being a god.

I'm not trying to disprove the possibility of there being a god, I'm trying to refute Intelligent Design as a logical conclusion given today's evidence. Lack of evidence is not evidence for the existence of a god.

So you are basically saying that there is no god
what if everything was designed by god to happen as it has? what if god altered all the variables to make everything happen as it has?

Seath wrote:So you are basically saying that there is no god

I'm saying I see no logical justification to believe in one.

Seath wrote: what if everything was designed by god to happen as it has? what if god altered all the variables to make everything happen as it has?

Well then I'd say "Aw shucks, I was fooled"

ReconToaster wrote:

Seath wrote:So you are basically saying that there is no god

I'm saying I see no logical justification to believe in one.

Seath wrote: what if everything was designed by god to happen as it has? what if god altered all the variables to make everything happen as it has?

Well then I'd say "Aw shucks, I was fooled"

Then you dont believe in a god.
So why keep the concept of ID from even being mentioned in schools? Just because of your opinion?

Seath wrote:Then you dont believe in a god.
So why keep the concept of ID from even being mentioned in schools? Just because of your opinion?

You're right, I don't, but that's not relevant. I don't want Intelligent Design to be taught in school because I see absolutely no evidence to support it, aside from lack of explanation otherwise.

"What if" scenarios are not sound enough to qualify as text book material.

evolution is technically a what if too, it has not been proven true yet

Also, so you are saying it shouldn;t even be touched? Cuz whats that telling everyone is that there is no such thing as ID, a notion I myself as well as many others disagree with.

Seath wrote:evolution is technically a what if too, it has not been proven true yet

But the difference is that is has at least a hint of actual evidence behind it. How definitively it is taught is another matter altogether, which often varies from place to place.

Also, so you are saying it shouldn;t even be touched? Cuz whats that telling everyone is that there is no such thing as ID, a notion I myself as well as many others disagree with.

If you want to say "Some people blindly subscribe to the belief in a god," I'm fine with that. If you want to actually take it seriously and teach it as a legitimate theory in our schools, I've got a big problem.

There is nothing telling people that there is absolutely no Intelligent Design, but there is also nothing even suggesting that there is such a thing, aside from current lack of an otherwise definitive explanation.

There is not even a hint of factual support for the idea. In my mind, that means that it has not reached anywhere near the validity required to be taught in schools.

This is not about me saying there is no god, this is about me saying that we should not be teaching ideas with no scientific backing in SCIENCE class.