WTF PAKISTAN??

[ResonKinetic]

I can't reason with reson

hey there's no reson to be unresonable

anyway, i think schools should teach everything because they're loving schools. it's their job to inform people of different things, and that should include how the universe came about.

at that point, it should be up to the students to decide for themselves what they believe. no one should be forced into anything

pretty sure there's something in the Bible that says something about letting people decide for themselves what they wanna believe.

(but this is really off-topic)

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[Planr]

anyway, i think schools should teach everything because they're loving schools. it's their job to inform people of different things, and that should include how the universe came about.

at that point, it should be up to the students to decide for themselves what they believe. no one should be forced into anything

pretty sure there's something in the Bible that says something about letting people decide for themselves what they wanna believe.

(but this is really off-topic)

Yes, I agree that schools should teach all viewpoints equally and without bias. The different viewpoints of how life and the universe were created should be taught as well, because no human can prove how the universe began.

You are correct about the Bible teaching free will. The Christian God gives all people freedom to chose whether or not to follow him.

[SeventhSandwich]

I am condoning ignorance. Is stoneing women wrong? Yes. Are we in position to tell an entire people how to live? No.

Society is in a position to tell people how to live. It's pretty much the only way that a group of people can coexist without killing each other. That's the whole idea behind a nation of laws that forbid stuff like reckless driving and murder.

I don't get your big deal with 'telling people how to live'. That's the whole point of organized society, and without it we'd literally and figuratively unleash anarchy.

[SeventhSandwich]

No doubt the reverse is true for many that call themselves atheists, who want religion in any form banned from schools in favor of their nonreligious philosophies.

Yes, I agree that schools should teach all viewpoints equally and without bias. The different viewpoints of how life and the universe were created should be taught as well, because no human can prove how the universe began.

Religion isn't banned from schools. Last year in my history class I learned a lot about Catholicism and some of the most famous Renaissance popes. The year before that I learned a lot about Hinduism. However, creation myth is banned from public schools because it contradicts the whole point of education. There is no 'controversy' over whether the theory of evolution is more substantiated than 'creation theory' as an explanation for why organisms change over time in a population. To teach kids about something that has no substantiation in a public institution is to create a new generation that continues to lag behind the rest of the world in scientific literacy. That being said, private schools are free to teach creation if they so choose to, but public schools are bound by the constitution to not favor one specific religious belief.

To ask schools to teach the controversy is like asking them to teach miasma theory as just-as-good an explanation for disease as modern germ theory. Or to teach that no one is /really/ sure whether the different parts of the brain control different parts of the body and it's totally just as likely that phrenology is right and bumps on your skull correspond to math and musical skill.

I guess my point is that public educational institutions are obligated to teach people the best explanation for nature when teaching science, and creation myth just doesn't cut it.

[Planr]

Seventh, I will remind you that the theory of evolution must be accepted with as just as much faith as creationism, because neither have the evidence to be proven as fact. Evolution must ultimately be accepted by faith. Additionally I am curious as to why you are so one-sided about creationism. From reading your post, it seems you are stating that teaching religious creation stories makes students scientifically illiterate. Your usage of the word "myth" to describe creationism indicates a clear bias, by using that word you are describing it as something that is a false belief.

There is no logical reason why schools should not also teach biblical creationism alongside the theory of evolution in science classes. There is a difference between teaching something and promoting something. Teaching something is telling what it's about and describing the issue. Promoting something is stating it to be the correct view and to be true. The issue is very controversial in the western world, but just because it's controversial does not mean it should be banned from schools.

The issue in public schools today is that they do not present a balanced and unbaised educational cirriculum towards students when it comes to absolutes such as how everything came to exist. Students throughout their public high school years are constantly told and given arguments in favor of the theory of evolution, but rarely are they ever given any of the real arguments in favor of an alternative and equally logical point of view, which is creationism. Thus they generally emerge with a one-sided view in favor of evolution being true. And since evolution must be accepted by faith, it goes beyond the grounds of what is science, and therefore it violates the laws that public schools cannot promote religious beliefs.

[SeventhSandwich]

Seventh, I will remind you that the theory of evolution must be accepted with as just as much faith as creationism, because neither have the evidence to be proven as fact.

This is nonsense. You can have more confidence that something is true without actually proving it, which is a central tenet of modern science. Science is generally geared towards creating a falsifiable theory that when tested with rigorous experimentation, does not get falsified. This is a lot of science-y jargon that can be better explained with an brown townogy.

If you were teaching a bunch of kindergarten kids about microwaves, you'd tell them that microwaves heat up water in food and make it hot so it's nice to eat. If a kid raised his hand and told you, "What if a microwave suddenly started cooling food?", there is no governing law of the universe that says that things can't suddenly behave entirely different. There's no way to prove that microwaves can't suddenly start cooling down food. Even though every single person who has ever used a microwave since 1947 has demonstrated that microwaves heat up food when they contain water. Even though we understand that the microwave spectrum of electromagnetic radiation causes water molecules to flip up and down and heat up through a process known as dielectric heating, there is no way to prove conclusively that a microwave can't cool food.

Teaching creationism is essentially like teaching that microwave ovens freeze water. You're discarding a well-substantiated, tested explanation for one that has never been substantiated or demonstrated.

The issue in public schools today is that they do not present a balanced and unbaised educational cirriculum towards students when it comes to absolutes such as how everything came to exist. Students throughout their public high school years are constantly told and given arguments in favor of the theory of evolution, but rarely are they ever given any of the real arguments in favor of an alternative and equally logical point of view, which is creationism.

No, it does teach an unbiased point of view. The theory of evolution is unbiased because it isn't based on doctrine, religion, or dogma. It's an explanation scientists have developed with experimentation and observation. Teaching an explanation that doesn't hold true, doesn't open itself up to falsification, and explains absolutely nothing is inherently biased.

[Planr]

There has been a large amount of evidence to support creationism, just as much so as the theory of evolution. You do not have to discard the theory of evolution in order to teach creationism at the same time. The students get to decide for themselves from their lessons which they prefer to believe.

No, it does teach an unbiased point of view. The theory of evolution is unbiased because it isn't based on doctrine, religion, or dogma. It's an explanation scientists have developed with experimentation and observation. Teaching an explanation that doesn't hold true, doesn't open itself up to falsification, and explains absolutely nothing is inherently biased.

It is biased for schools to teach one creation explanation but not another. Scientists have never actively observed the theory of evolution taking place. They have only observed organisms adapting to their environment, and those adaptations have always only gone so far.

You say that creationism does not hold itself to be true. I'd ask  that you explain why you believe it cannot hold itself to be true.
You also say it doesn't open itself up to falsification. I'd like to know more what you mean by this.
You say creationism explains absolutely nothing. I do not see this as a relevant statement for arguing upon as you and I both well know that creationism is an explanation to how living organisms, along with everything else, was created.

[SeventhSandwich]

There has been a large amount of evidence to support creationism, just as much so as the theory of evolution.

No, there isn't. There is hearsay, spurious testimonials, and faith. If you can show me any evidence that isn't easily discarded by anyone with basic critical thinking skills, I'll give you some credence.

You do not have to discard the theory of evolution in order to teach creationism at the same time.

"You don't have to discard the lesson that microwave ovens heat food in order to respect the beliefs of us microwave-freezists"

[Mister Cheese]

Can we just not argue about religion again please
I mean jeez we argue about it enough without getting anywhere so why keep doing it

Anyways this shouldn't happen regardless if its a third world country or not.

[SeventhSandwich]

Can we just not argue about religion again please

I'm not arguing about religion. I'm arguing about education right now.

[Mister Cheese]

I'm not arguing about religion. I'm arguing about education right now.

Creationism = Religion

[SeventhSandwich]

Creationism = Religion

Eh, fair enough. But at least this is somewhat different than your average religion argument since I'm only defending the rights of public schools not to teach bullstuff rather than arguing about theology.

[Planr]

Eh, fair enough. But at least this is somewhat different than your average religion argument since I'm only defending the rights of public schools not to teach bullstuff rather than arguing about theology.

This is exactly the problem. You're clearly not interested in having a respectful conversation about this, but instead you prefer to ignorantly dismiss creationism as a hilarious mythological fairy tale instead of examine creation's arguments and explain why you prefer evolution over them. To be truthful, I don't want to spend my time now arguing about it either, but I was curious why you believed what you did. Instead you've made it very clear that creationism is a joke to you (without actually legitimately explaining why) and you've already made up your mind and that anything contrary to evolution is not true.

[DiceyGrammar]

This is exactly the problem. You're clearly not interested in having a respectful conversation about this, but instead you prefer to ignorantly dismiss creationism as a hilarious mythological fairy tale instead of examine creation's arguments and explain why you prefer evolution over them. To be truthful, I don't want to spend my time now arguing about it either, but I was curious why you believed what you did. Instead you've made it very clear that creationism is a joke to you and you've already made up your mind and that anything contrary to evolution is not true.

Don't back out just yet, I was looking forward to seeing the evidence for creationism

[SeventhSandwich]

I was curious why you believed what you did. Instead you've made it very clear you've already made up your mind and that anything contrary to evolution is not true.

I'm definitely biased but don't say that I'm against anything contrary to evolution. Every time a scientist performs an experiment, he is trying to falsify a theory or hypothesis. If I didn't want people to falsify evolution, I would say that we should all stop trying to do research on it since it's definitely right and nothing needs changing. That would be inherently unscientific.

However, it looks like instead of providing me with the

large amount of evidence to support creationism,

you're going with the "you're so dumb I don't even have to prove it to you" tactic.

I'll still gladly read over any evidence you give me, but keep in mind that you claimed to me that there is just as much evidence supporting creationism as evolution, and in 2012 there were something like 68,400 scientific, peer-reviewed papers published on evolution, so I'm expecting a bibliography numbering in the 100s of thousands.

Instead you've made it very clear that creationism is a joke to you (without actually legitimately explaining why)

I'm pretty sure I did explain it clearly, and you just missed it while skipping to the bottom few sentences of my posts. Creationism is unsubstantiated as an explanation, in the same way that 'microwaves freeze water' is an unsubstantiated claim that has never happened before. I regard creationists in the same way that I would regard a person who refuses to believe that microwaves heat water, and instead confidently asserts that they freeze water. That is, I regard them as crazy.