The Texas-Size Debate Over Teaching Evolution

haha for all the big words you used your arguments is still that of a child. "prove to me god doesnt exist" prove to me pixies dont live in my closet. then again you cant because if you claim there are no pixies you are also "plainly overextending your abilities" or is my high blood sugar causing me to miss one hell of a sarcastic comment

Fine post indeed. But, you overlook a very basic point and therefore create a straw man argument. It is not possible to prove the absence of an object (be it god or other), only its presence. If you read or listen to Hitchens, you will find that he readily admits that he cannot prove the non-existence of god ... the attempt to do so would be a fool's errand. Instead, he argues that there is no good reason for believing that a god exists and, furthermore, that even if there were, there is no good reason to believe that the existing god is the one described in any holy text.

Now there are two parts of the 1st Amendment. There is the Establishment Clause, which prevents the state from establishing or favoring a particular religion, and the Free Exercise Clause, which allows people to freely practice their religion. If you want to argue that both of these are truly protecting the religious freedoms of the citizens and are not protecting the state, fine. But the Establishment Clause does limit the influence of religion on the state. Moreover, the 1st Amendment does more than provide "for the peoples' protection to worship freely as they wish". It also protects the people from public policies favoring particular religious beliefs that some people may not share. In your post, you seem to understand the importance of the Free Exercise Clause but ignore the Establishment Clause.

A good example is the issue of teaching Creationism (or Intelligent Design) in science classes. Teaching Creationism in science class does not infringe upon free worship. People can still practice Buddhism or be an Atheist and learn about Creationism. But it does establish an overtly Christian policy in the public schools, putting Christian creation stories above the creation stories/theories of other religious beliefs, and thus violates the 1st Amendment. Note that you can check that the Establishment Clause was a basis for the decision in the Dover School Board case. If you wanted to by pass the 1st Amendment, you would need to teach the creation stories of many different religions in school, though this would still be bad policy since religion and science are two separate things.

"You read something into my comments and into the phrase Created Equal that was not there."
If I did so, my apologies. I think in some places you are debating semantics, but this is truly aside the point and I won't dwell on it. My intent was only to clarify the 1st Amendment, not to imply you have a position that you do not (that's why I said you "seem" to do stuff rather than stating you "are" definitely doing stuff).

"This is how cults get started."
This comment is garbage and I have no idea what you mean by this. Please avoid making inane comments.

Logicitout, you were questioning "the separation of church and state was to protect the state". I inferred that you thought that the Church should be an active part of the state, something I strongly disagree with. If I inferred incorrectly, my apologies.

With respect to "created equal" and "rights", the point is that the Founding Father fell short in treating all men as created equal, at least by modern standards. Now we can debate the semantics that people where created equal but not treated equal. Nonetheless, if all men are created equal, then they should have equal rights. It is clear that the Founding Fathers granted some rights to some people, such as white men, that they did not grant to others, such as blacks and women. And yes, part of the reason for this is our view of what rights people have has changed over time and that was clearly part of what I was saying.

While what constitutes a religion may have been clearly understood (in modern terms) by the Founding Fathers, the interpretation of the 1st Amendment has changed slightly over time. What has changed is the concept of religious freedoms and the extent to which they applied to nonbelievers. Back in the time of the Founding Fathers, atheists were not allowed to testify in court since they could not swear on a Bible (note that there were exceptions made for Quakers, but not for atheists). You can verify this, for instance, by reading the Maryland state constitution. Since then, the requirement for believing in god to testify in court has been ruled unconstitutional under the 1st Amendment.

Logicitout, firstly I think you misunderstood my post. I was primarily pointing out that the 1st Amendment was designed to protect the rights of Christians. That by preventing your Creationism in science classes, we are defending your rights. If you are going to challenge the separation of church and state, please keep this in mind.

I will not pretend the Founding Fathers were perfect or followed their philosophy and rules exactly as I would expect. Indeed, they spoke of all men being created equal but had slaves and denied women the right to vote. I still expect all men to be regarded as equals, including blacks and women, and recognize that my desire to do so has its roots in the Founding Fathers (and others). Some Founding Fathers may have viewed religion as necessary in a democracy. In the time of the Founding Fathers, atheists could not give testimony in court since they could not truly swear on a Bible. I still expect the separation of church and state upheld and the rights of atheists to practice their beliefs to be protected. Moreover, BoutrousBoutrous does correctly point out that the more obvious examples of the separation of church and state being undermined occurred after the time of the Founding Fathers.

The Founding Fathers were nonetheless very much aware the negative influence a single religion could have on the state and how the state could infringe upon the religious rights of some citizens. Thus they implemented the separation of church and state. The threat that one religion, say your Christian religion, could dominate the state and infringe upon the religion freedoms of some citizens is still a real threat and thus we should uphold the separation of church and state today, for example by keeping religion out of science classes. Again, note that not only are the rights of secular humanists being protected by this, but your Christian rights as well.

You seem to be using the Founding Fathers as a way of undermining the separation of church and state so that you can force YOUR God and religion into OUR government. You have basically said that if the Founding Fathers didn't follow the separation of church and state, you don't need to either. You say this with regard to protecting the state from the church, so the clear implication is you want your church to impose itself on our government. Let's get this straight. Whether you like it or not, you can't do that. It violates the 1st Amendment (namely the Establishment Clause). The Founding Fathers would never have condoned this, so don't pretend like they would. We have a separation of church and state and I expect you to live with that and respect it!

@ Logicitout - to which thing are you referring, specifically? The "in god we trust" inscription on money is recent, not from the framers, as is the pledge of allegiance. I think if you read the actual US constitution (bill of rights, federalist papers, etc.) you will see that they are consistent.

How about: God made us mortal because of original sin. But Jesus died for our sins, did he not? Not just some, but all our sins. So why are we still mortal?

This would be an instructive approach to teaching science. But it has a clear secular bias that many religious folk would object to. (They might fear that secular humanism is being presented as superior to religion, in which case the Establishment Clause might be violated.) Moreover, we know that those advocating teaching ID really want ID taught as if it were a valid scientific theory, which is not the case. The point is, religion and science are two separate things and we should keep them separate. Religious explanations and scientific explanations should not be compared in school, except maybe to briefly remark that they are completely distinct. Religion should be entirely kept out of science classes.

Religion and science are two separate things. That's why religion shouldn't be taught in science class.

You can't "make laws" requiring that something be taught in all Christian Churches. This violates that religious freedoms in the 1st Amendment. The state can't tell people how to worship (under the Free Exercise Clause) and thus the Churches can teach whatever they want. Note that these same religious freedoms in the 1st Amendment prevents religion from being taught in the public schools (by the Establishment Clause, see the Dover School Board case). So your entire post is kind of ridiculous. Go read the US Constitution.

"I pray you dont have children."

Not cool. You should pray for something like that.

I share some of your concern over environmentalism, as I think the debate has gotten too political and some environmentalist go to far. However, this does not mean global warming is automatically a hoax or that we should neglect the environment. We should try to take the scientist seriously, rather than challenging and refuting everything scientists say, like you have been Logicitout. Even if global warming is a hoax, we can and should try to do a much better job of taking care of our planet.

You point out that people can't predict the weather or stock market day to day and week to week but try to predict the global climate. This point is erroneous. Weather and the stock market are dynamical systems and it is impossible to precisely predict the behavior of dynamical systems at a small time scale. However, one can follow and predict long term trends in the weather and climate. So it is very possible for the weather man to get it wrong and climate scientist to accurately project trends in climate change.

Moreover, I asked some questions a few days ago about morality. I would be great if you would respond. In short, I asked if you think there is a universal moral code that everyone agrees to and meets an objective standard? I claimed that there are moral gray areas where people disagree on what is right or wrong and asked if you agreed.