Ben Stein's new movie about Intelligent Design

"God as a divine clockmaker" is a nice theory.
It's just not a scientific one and has no place in science class, or in the public schools. It cannot be falsified experimentally, and these clowns know it. No matter how luxurious the sheep's clothing is, ID is fundamentalist religion, gussied up in a failed attempt to get creationism back in the schools. Period.

 

but the banana fits in my hand, dammit.

 

There's a belief out there that intelligent design says God created man from dirt, and did all of this around us in a seven-day work week, well before occupational wage-and-hour laws were in effect.

That's not how many who believe that "God created" think, though they want that element as part of the theories of creation in the public schools.

There's plenty of middle ground for "faith" and "reason" to co-exist. What I want to know from those who speak against ID is how does their faith speak to a creation ordered by God at all? I don't see that you can have a judeo-Christian foundation of faith without it, nor many of the other faiths which have similar creation stories.

 

It speaks to it outside science class, where it belongs.
The "middle ground" for the ID movement is to teach splinter Protestantism in the public schools. Always has been. Always will be.

 

You don't teach Russian in French class.

You don't teach religion in science class.

Not all that complicated.

 

I oppose your opposable thumbs!

 

Religion doesn't belong in a public school curriculum. Period. End of story.

Want your children to get a religious education? Send them to a private school. But don't you dare try to shove your faith on my kid.

It isn't just about the separation of church and state (yes, I understand the arguments there. Spare us the debate), though that is behind the legal reasoning. The more important point is the questions that arise if you open the doors to school prayer or the teaching of religion in the classroom. Who gets to pick the prayers if we have school prayer? Who gets to pick which religion's ideas are taught? Do you really think we can teach them all?

And don't tell me the atheists or members of other religions can just not participate. Do you understand how divisive that is in a classroom? Trust me. I've been there. I went to a private school run by Catholics and I'm Jewish. It was an issue and it definitely created tension.

This is why we don't have a national religion. Because very smart people understood the the difficulties that will arise when you mix government and religion rather than allowing people to choose for themselves.

 

If it were that simple, there wouldn't be much of an argument.

There are some folks who make their living in science that tend to promote Atheism to the point that it becomes its own religion.

Now, I don't believe that is all that widespread, especially at the kindergarten through high school level. But the prominence of a few outspoken atheists in the halls of science does give Christian fundamentalists a convenient boogey man.

 

Again, religion does not belong in public schools Period. End of story. And that includes people inappropriately pushing atheism.

 

I agree. I'm a Christian, obviously, but my church and I will teach my own kids that aspect. I want them to learn actual science in school.
I don't want some jihadist Muslim telling them 9/11 was a great day in their history class, just like I don't want some whacked-out science teacher telling them the earth is only 6,000 years old and everything was made in six days.

 

There is room for teaching of religion in schools, similar to the way we teach history. But to tacitly approve of prayer or "moments of silence" is out of bounds.

Keeping specific religions, prayer, intelligent design and similar veins of study out of public schools actually strengthens religion. When the government backs one religion over another, it weakens the others.