Reading these posts over and over again, it's occurred to me exactly why many of them bother me so much.
1. The self righteousness of those who have gone up against creationists and thrown some scathing point at them and walked away coupled with insults to their intelligence.
2. The mutual admiration society that grows around a group on the same end of a polarized belief commenting on how insightful some post or another is.
You should really ask yourself, what am I trying to accomplish with the teaching of science? Because these two trends will accomplish one thing, the alienation and shunning of anyone who believes in christianity and its various views on how life began. You're going to get a group of people who are basically out of scientific circles because of a handful who are unwilling to put their differences in non-scientific matters aside and concentrate on the science. This will lead to less people who are educated in and less people who believe in the scientific method and science in general when what we need are MORE people who embrace the scientific method. These two behaviors are part of why there is that big push to get non-scientific things taught in a science class.
There's really nothing new in this post other than the attempt to equate creationism and intelligent design. Everything else could be reasonably replicated by anyone with a working knowledge of what omniscience, omnipotence, and benevolence are. Tune into any random theological forum and you'll find at least one person who will note how incompatible omni-* and benevolence are and how if god is an omni-* then he's a right bastard. This is just yet another example of that basic incompatibility. All of this back-patting just serves to increase polarization.
Everyone in this forum seems to think that ID is purely a wedge to get creationism into schools. Nobody has realized that by introducing real ID into christianity and having the blessing of the church on it allows a wedge going the OTHER way introducing science and evolution to christian students!
Science and Religion are not incompatible, or at least could reasonably coexist after the religious admit that things pure creationism 6,000 years ago that are contradicted by the evidence are likely to be wrong, and the scientific side admits that god is basically not within the realm of teaching science and cannot be tested either way. (The fact that by learning the scientific method and judging all of the evidence based on it leads you to believe that it is simpler without a god is irrelevant. Let them figure that out on their own.) If the teachers take a tolerant and purely scientific stance towards religious students then they may eventually work their way over on their own once they have learned the scientific method and done enough to convince themselves one way or another.
In any case, hopefully people will quit getting in a pissing contest over the size of their world knowledge and intellect and start trying to teach science instead. Getting that one zing in on the creationists just serves to make them angry and even more set against your opinions. With the polls showing so many more people pushing the other direction it will not be pretty for science with things remaining so polarized.
Think of it this way, If you take a fish from the fish store in water that is one temperature and drop them directly into a tank that is another, they will definitely suffer immense stress and frequently die from it. If you take the same fish and float their bag in the water to allow the temperature to slowly equalize before pouring them in, they will usually survive with no ill effects.
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*sigh* Mutual admiration societies
Date: 2005-08-11 07:27 am (UTC)1. The self righteousness of those who have gone up against creationists and thrown some scathing point at them and walked away coupled with insults to their intelligence.
2. The mutual admiration society that grows around a group on the same end of a polarized belief commenting on how insightful some post or another is.
You should really ask yourself, what am I trying to accomplish with the teaching of science? Because these two trends will accomplish one thing, the alienation and shunning of anyone who believes in christianity and its various views on how life began. You're going to get a group of people who are basically out of scientific circles because of a handful who are unwilling to put their differences in non-scientific matters aside and concentrate on the science. This will lead to less people who are educated in and less people who believe in the scientific method and science in general when what we need are MORE people who embrace the scientific method. These two behaviors are part of why there is that big push to get non-scientific things taught in a science class.
There's really nothing new in this post other than the attempt to equate creationism and intelligent design. Everything else could be reasonably replicated by anyone with a working knowledge of what omniscience, omnipotence, and benevolence are. Tune into any random theological forum and you'll find at least one person who will note how incompatible omni-* and benevolence are and how if god is an omni-* then he's a right bastard. This is just yet another example of that basic incompatibility. All of this back-patting just serves to increase polarization.
Everyone in this forum seems to think that ID is purely a wedge to get creationism into schools. Nobody has realized that by introducing real ID into christianity and having the blessing of the church on it allows a wedge going the OTHER way introducing science and evolution to christian students!
Science and Religion are not incompatible, or at least could reasonably coexist after the religious admit that things pure creationism 6,000 years ago that are contradicted by the evidence are likely to be wrong, and the scientific side admits that god is basically not within the realm of teaching science and cannot be tested either way. (The fact that by learning the scientific method and judging all of the evidence based on it leads you to believe that it is simpler without a god is irrelevant. Let them figure that out on their own.) If the teachers take a tolerant and purely scientific stance towards religious students then they may eventually work their way over on their own once they have learned the scientific method and done enough to convince themselves one way or another.
In any case, hopefully people will quit getting in a pissing contest over the size of their world knowledge and intellect and start trying to teach science instead. Getting that one zing in on the creationists just serves to make them angry and even more set against your opinions. With the polls showing so many more people pushing the other direction it will not be pretty for science with things remaining so polarized.
Think of it this way, If you take a fish from the fish store in water that is one temperature and drop them directly into a tank that is another, they will definitely suffer immense stress and frequently die from it. If you take the same fish and float their bag in the water to allow the temperature to slowly equalize before pouring them in, they will usually survive with no ill effects.