I think it's possible to point out the problems w/ creationism w/o being anti-religious (if I point out the issues w/ the braking system of a Toyota that doesn't necessarily make me anti-Toyota). If fundamentalists become upset w/ this they're welcome to attempt to establish a theory of their own which scientists will embrace if it has an ounce of validity. Fundamentalists tend to see anything that contradicts their "world-view" as anti-religious but that's simply not the case. The state can't be blamed for which side the evidence falls on. If Hindus believe that the universe hatched from a "cosmic egg" & all of the available evidence seems to contradict this, it's our responsibility to label this story as a myth & show them why if it's relevant. I think that the word "myth" being used is justifiable & I think it's important for students to understand why it's given this distinction. The problem w/ your interpretation of the separation of church & state is that there isn't much in the realm of science that doesn't contradict the beliefs of the religious. The major difference here is that most scientists aren't out to interfere w/ religion but many of the religious are out to interfere w/ science (they've been doing so for ages).

I would also like to add that attending church is often not voluntary for children of fundamentalist parents. You're typically born in that religion, labeled by everyone around you as a member of that religion & brainwashed against your will. It's very difficult, if not impossible, for many children to believe anything other than what they're told under these conditions. We should be teaching these children to think rationally, to question everything & to not accept something as fact unless there's evidence because they won't be getting these lessons from their parents or pastor.

Sure, but children are exposed to a great number of varying positions on any number of issues. If you are going to say that it is wrong for a child to be "brainwashed" by the religious, you would have to concede that it would be equally wrong for a child to be "brainwashed" in an atheistic environment.

I also think it's ignorant to expect people who believe in religious explanations for the origins of life to present some valid scientific theory. If the origins of life do lie in some religious explanation then that is not science and could not be explained nor understood using science. I believe your view is that if it exists outside of science then it doesn't actually exist. I think that's a valid point of view, I just disagree with you that the state should advocate it.

Yes, I totally concede that it's wrong to brainwash children into learning to think for themselves.

You are a gentleman and a scholar. Thanks

I agree that "brainwashing" of any type is bad. I don't have a problem w/ parents that say "we're Atheists" or "we're Christians" but "we want you to know that there's an entire world of different "beliefs" out there & we'll love you no matter what you believe". However, this is impossible for most fundamentalists because they many of them believe that children burn in hell for eternity if they die before they've received god's gifts (e.g. baptism, holy ghost/spirit). I've seen children that are barely old enough to speak raising their hands to the air, crying & pretending to speak in tongues because their friends, pastor & parents are doing the same thing (& these adults are pretending that they believe that they're speaking in tongues also or at least they need to believe it on a psychological level). Parents are scared to death that their children could die in a car crash before they receive these "gifts" & are trying to get them to do so earlier & earlier. Atheists probably don't have this same since of urgency. I agree that there are militant Atheists out there but the dangers aren't really that great.

Well, it seems to me that you are too zealously injecting "fundamentalism" into this discussion. I don't like religious types that zealously attack opposing thought just as I don't like atheists who attack religion or state institutions that dismiss it.

You know what's more wrong than either of these imaginary dilemmas?

- It's wrong to teach children that religion has a place in any scientific field.

- It's wrong to expect the state to teach any religious concepts of any kind, and especially...

- It's wrong for parents to leave the responsibility of religious education to the state.

- It's wrong for parents to not talk with their children about what they learned at school.

- It's wrong to not teach your children that they shouldn't believe everything they read.

- It's wrong to use mandatory education to push a political agenda. (Let me preempt the stupid remarks: I'm talking about conservative Christian groups using the Texas curriculum to affect the entire country, teaching a whitewashed version of history and making 'God did it' seem like an important part of any rational debate. Anybody who posts that teaching evolution is a political agenda is an uneducated ****ing moron.)

- It's wrong to conflate atheism and science in any setting, but especially a setting where there are children. This one is important, Wookie.

- It's wrong to complain about unemployment, about outsourcing and about work visas when you have created a country that is literally incapable of providing a usable science education for your population.

- It's wrong to Teach the Controversy when the only controversy is a difference of opinion between the experts of a particular field and a high school dropout radio host who's high on oxycontin.

Would you be surprised if I said I basically agree with all of that? I may have some issue but they all probably boil down to semantics.

so I'm jumping onto this train late, and the only thing I really have to say is that the folks who called people who take the term "myth" to mean "patently untrue" are "barely literate"

Yes, the actual definition of "myth" covers Christianity, but that particular misunderstanding isn't about one's literacy; it's about connotation vs denotation.

I don't really have anything to say about everything else

Absolutely not. The only one I think you'd disagree with is the one that mentions you specifically.
Teaching a rigorous scientific curriculum is not an 'atheistic' environment. Science is fundamentally a 'bottom-up' process - you start with observations/measurements, and formulate hypotheses.
On the other hand, Religion is 'top-down' - you start with hypotheses and then you figure out how your observations fit in. Atheism essentially begins with the hypothesis that nothing outside of the domain of scientific inquiry exists.

If you were talking about atheist proselytism in the classroom, I apologize for the misunderstanding. Religion (including atheism) has no place in a science education.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm speaking in more general terms than if I was specifically debating here. I only even brought up the atheist issue when some members comments turned away from this specific issue to advocating against religion in general. I realize that atheism is not related to science.

It very well could be thought that way, but that's not how it should be.

I guess I will address these, briefly. They were so vastly off topic that I was going to avoid them.

- Our outsourcing is more of an economic decision than an education problem.

- He's a college drop out and has kicked his prescription pain killer addiction. Also, he generally steers away from topics such as the one we are dealing with in this thread.

He may steer clear most of the time but he's definitely made some really ignorant comments on the subject (e.g. comments regarding Ben Stein's joke of a documentary "Expelled"). Either way, I don't think that any of us really want to go in to a discussion about this particular person (there would be no end to it).


I suppose that I bring up fundamentalism because I don't see how moderately religious people could be upset about creationism being called a "myth" because I would expect them to agree. I also expect moderately religious people to accept evolution. I think that these people are wrong but they don't concern me like the fundamentalists do. I don't think that you'll find many Atheists that "attack" (if you can call it that) moderately religious people for their beliefs (they just don't want those beliefs destroying this country). Most of the "attacks" are on fundamentalist ideology & tactics.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. I think this topic does belong in a science curriculum for the same reason something like Phlogiston does. It's a silly thing that we used to believe in because we didn't know how things really worked yet.

It would be interesting to see in the distant future how many things humanity will regard as silly, which are widely regarded as fact today.

Welcome to the Middle Ages.

I find it interesting that you would call that documentary a joke although you could at least gain back some credibility if you consider any of the Moore documentaries the same. Anyway, I managed to watch it when it came to Watch It Now on Netflix. To me the most humorous part is when Dawkins admits that he thinks ID is a very plausible theory so long as we are saying that aliens are the intelligence that seeded life on Earth so long as they evolved through some Darwinian means. Apparently to him that is less of a stretch than believing God did it.

It's a joke, and so are Moore's films.


He believes it's plausible. He doesn't think it's remotely likely. He was also quoted out of context (something Michael Moore is fond of, too!)

I wouldn't have trouble believing aliens played some part in genetically engineering organisms on Earth, I'm sure we will do it once we become space fairing.

It would be nice if you cite the source (although I assume wikipedia) but I thought Stein did a fair job and certainly didn't come across as if he is a "creationist front". Besides, people should be smart enough not to say something they, allegedly, don't believe in front of a camera.

Another thing I find interesting is that you agree he says it's plausible. Well, no other prominent theory is anything other than plausible at this point so why the emphasis on that word?

Dawkins didn't say anything he doesn't believe. I'm sure you're aware of how selectively quoting people can be misleading.


Abiogenesis is much more likely.

This. The overwhelming majority of English-speakers, at least in America, understand the term "myth" to connote falsity, probably owing mostly to the proliferation of "myth vs. fact" articles Vornskr mentioned. Is that wrong? Sure. But we're well past the point at which more education is going to correct that mis-evolution of language.

Just get all the kids to white-out "myth" and write "theory" or "belief". The religious ones can write fact if they like

You're absolutely wrong, the man has said a great many things.

The problem that Wookie06 brought up and I actually agree with [::cringe::], is that there are children that are raised by atheist parents who outright bash all religion. They are also brainwashed to accept that there is no God, instead of giving that child the option to explore that for themselves. The parents sole motivation is driven by very small, insignificant details in religious texts that fundamentalist wrongfully tout. As such, the brainwashed atheist do not get exposure to the moral teachings of religious texts.

Both sides are wrong in raising their children in this way.



I think "belief" would be the most appropriate.

• http://www.expelledexposed.com/
• http://richarddawkins.net/articles/2389

If you'll do the research you'll see that Dawkins was taken out of context to suit Stein's agenda. It's disgusting & I hope you'll join us in condemning it. I don't ever recall defending a Moore documentary.

P.S. I don't have time for anything else right now...gone hiking.

I agree that sheltering children from religion is silly and that anyone should be well read, especially when it comes to the religions of the world. That said, I do not think that atheist kids need to read religious books because they hold some exclusive moral ground. There is zero moral novelty in the 3 major religions that weren't available in some philosophy or ethical structure. Religion does not have a monopoly on ethical treatment of others, my children will not be taught that there are secret moral teachings hidden away in ancient texts.

'Atheism' as many people understand it, only exists because religion exists. Should the day come when nobody is religious, within a few generations nobody would call themselves an atheist or teach their kids about atheism. So the only reason atheist parents push atheism onto their kids is to buffer them from religion, if there was no religion an atheist parent would mention it all - they'd just teach their children about reasoning and so on.

This is the difference between religious atheist parents. A religious parent will (often) indoctrinate their child with their religion, even if they have no awareness whatsoever that other religions exist. Whilst an atheist parent will only indoctrinate (I guess) their kids with atheism as a knee-jerk reaction to oppose religion.

.

Because those are the kids I'm in charge of. The point is I think you're really really wrong for believing some random eastern religion is correct for any reason other than its philosophy, not it's dogma or prophecies. If something is actually capable of addressing a universal truth for all humans, it doesn't need any cultural folklore to be right.

I guess some might call it history and not folklore.

My point has to do with the moral significance of the texts. Historical significance doesn't include humoring the fantastic tales of each individual belief system. JM's Taoists have sects that illustrate my point, some that embrace the ancient ritualism, and others that develop the philosophy into a functioning, logical system that has many parallels in other ethical teachings throughout time. I'm saying that morality is a universal (but varying) concept that supersedes even religion, and is based on empathy and collective success. I am disagreeing with Alco in that religion is not something non-theists need to be exposed to in order to be decent people.

A thought I have that I haven't fully fleshed out which goes against scientific explanations for life and much of evolution is that we even have morality, self awareness, etc. If we are, as someone like Mort-Hog would suggest, simply here to propagate our species what is the point of humanity even existing? Life is more than capable of accomplishing that at a much lower level. Life never needed to evolve to walk on land on a world mostly covered in water although you could of course argue that was necessary to find food or something. Not arguing or debating anything here. Just basically thinking out loud.

Collective success doesn't have any evolutionary benefit?

This is particularly why proper education is important. Your outloud thinking is indicative of a lack of evolutionary education.

What's worse is my own education doesn't equip me to cite the flaws in your thinking and provide specific examples of morality in animals.

This illustrates why teaching kids that the universe is a purposeful thing that was planned by someone who knows better than we do is useless and doesn't actually contribute anything to understanding our universe. It only serves to minimize the value of education.

The answer is:
-our job, from a purely biological perspective, is not to guarantee survival of our species per se; our job is to propagate our own genetic material.

Evolutionary theory is a *****. It sounds simple, but few people actually have an even basic grasp of it. My "evolution thinking muscle" has pretty much atrophied as well, maybe it's me who needs to shut up

I'm pretty sure it can all boil down to "Whatever leads something to reproduce successfully more will propagate".

Now now that we have nukes, would this be the end game?

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and believe that you are NOT claiming I am really really wrong for believing some random eastern religion is correct for any reason other than its philosophy, not it's dogma or prophecies. I also choose to believe that you are not claiming I believe it's dogma or prophecies. Though I might. I'd have to know what you think it's 'Dogma and Prophecies' are to make a claim as to one way or the other.

There is no "point" to humanity. It could be argued that we have a biological purpose but if you're talking about something deeper, we create our own purpose. Humanity doesn't need a "point" to exist or to function. Think of all of the people throughout history, especially recent history, who have created or found their own purpose. I think it's rather inspiring.

I'm talking about the difference between traditional tribal daoism and modern daoism. This isn't my opinion. The modern groups wish to separate themselves from superstition and focus more on philosophy than myths and stories.