Ray M. Davis Jr.: Why schools should teach creationism | Gainesville.com

Ray M. Davis Jr.: Why schools should teach creationism | Gainesville.com

Ray M. Davis Jr. is a rather clueless man. (That's me being kind). Here's why:

I was thinking about the controversy of whether or not the theory of intelligent creation should be taught in our schools, and realized that the main charge in our schools is to impart knowledge. Whether or not I believe in the theory of creationism, there are well over a billion people on this planets that do. Therefore this must be included with any other major theories.

Let's get the obvious out of the way. Intelligent creation is not a fucking theory. No credible scientist would ever call it that. You can't just call something a theory.

Second, his argument that a lot of people believe in creationism and therefore should be taught is a fallacy. It's known as argumentum ad populum. It's a childish argument. I don't mean that in an insulting manner (for the most part). Children will often claim "everyone has it, it's good, I must have it". I'm sure we can all see the error of this argument.

A majority in California didn't want to allow same-sex marriage but that does not make the decision to attempt to ban it right or acceptable.

I was thinking about the controversy of whether or not the theory of intelligent creation should be taught in our schools, and realized that the main charge in our schools is to impart knowledge. Whether or not I believe in the theory of creationism, there are well over a billion people on this planets that do. Therefore this must be included with any other major theories.

If a theory is wrong, it's wrong. If you can't handle that then stay out of the science debate. Opinions are nice, some are just more factually correct then others.

Evolution has not been clearly defined to the point that it is no longer theory but 100 percent fact. Scientist and others are still attempting conclusively prove the Big Bang Theory.

Evolution and the Big Bang Theory are two separate issues. Pro-intelligent designers need to get that fucking fact straight before they jump into this discussion.

Idaho logic | The Salt Lake Tribune

Idaho logic | The Salt Lake Tribune

From Robert Hoff:

Re “Idaho scraps science test requirement for students” (Tribune, Aug. 13):

It only took three years for Idaho’s State Board of Education to figure out how to get back at its science teachers. In 2007, the Idaho Science Teachers Association stood up for science education and church-state separation by declaring that “intelligent design,” the latest variant of creationism, has no place in science classes. This view mirrors that of the National Science Teachers Association.

Now the religious zealots who are Idaho’s education officials have decided to scrap the requirement that high school students must pass standardized tests in science before graduating, starting with the class of 2013.

Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna said the current system of too few tests is not an accurate measure of how students are performing in science, “not to the point that we would make it a graduation requirement.”

So, according to this logic, if something is broken, don’t fix it … throw it away! The problem with this solution is that it’s only logical in Idaho!

At times it really does feel as if the side of reason is losing.

There's a big illogical fly in former atheist's ointment - Winnipeg Free Press

There's a big illogical fly in former atheist's ointment - Winnipeg Free Press

From Ted St. Godard

BRITISH-BORN Christopher Hitchens is one of the cleverest thinkers now writing in English and also one of most outspoken atheists.
His recent memoir (ironically published prior to his having been diagnosed with esophageal cancer) describes the way in which writing and thinking can lead to a changing of one's mind, with the result that previously expressed opinions can come to no longer represent the author's position.
Now comes a second memoir, this one from Hitchens' younger sibling, Peter, wherein he relates his own fairly significant change of heart, a turning away from his Bible-burning atheist ways, to embrace Christianity.
A less prolific writer than his brother, and significantly less adept with language, Peter has written a book that is at once a confession and a profession of faith.
The fairly frequent references to his brother (whose name recently was conflated with that of fellow atheist Richard Dawkins as "Ditchens," by another unsophisticated thinker) lead one to wonder whether this outing is also Peter's attempt to clear the family name.
Hitchens goes to some length to demonstrate that in the 20th century, particularly in Britain, a country ravaged by two world wars (the first of which was to end all war), a "deep confusion of patriotism and faith" led to a watered-down Christianity, with the result that people left the flock, himself included.
He uses similar, if slightly tweaked (but not nuanced), arguments to suggest that the person he calls "homo Sovieticus," a man (yes) fairly designed to have faith in humanity and government rather than God and church, lived as a result in a "coarse and mannerless society."
"Compared with this desperate squalor," Hitchens writes, "the meanest British public house and the most sordid American bar are temples of civilization."
Few in the 21st century would dispute the almost complete failure of the Soviet enterprise, and Hitchens in fact notes that Christopher has written trenchant criticisms of totalitarianism in all its strains.
What Hitchens can't seem to appreciate is that, even if "Soviet Communism is organically linked to atheism," something his brother and others argue against (if somewhat feebly), and even if one accepts that Soviet tyranny was horrible, this says little about the existence of God, except inasmuch as it raises questions about how an all-loving and all-powerful deity can allow so much evil on this, his favourite planet (unless it's because he's so busy planning natural disasters).
Hitchens makes the easy point that under certain conditions humans behave badly. But under which conditions? When there is no God watching, but only "big brother" (one cannot escape noticing the relationship of the Hitchens brothers).
With unintended irony, Hitchens writes, "(t)hey (unbelievers) have a fundamental inability to concede that to be effectively absolute, a moral code needs to be beyond human power to alter," and elsewhere, "unless there is an absolute standard of good and evil," there is no way we fallen humans will behave.
For a man so bent on demonstrating that Lenin, Stalin and even their rebellious follower Trotsky, were evil due to atheism, this smacks of totalitarianism.
If we've learned nothing from generations of thinking and writing, it is that, as Hitchens quotes Trotsky jeeringly, "morality is a product of social development; that there is nothing invariable about it; that it serves social interests; that these interests are contradictory."
Although it is certain that both Christopher and Peter Hitchens will die, it may lamentably be the case that the former's remaining life on Earth will be short.
We can take comfort, and hope he does, from the fact that his books and other writing will long repay examination, and that he thereby will achieve a degree of immortality (insofar as he would tolerate the notion).
On the other hand, if this book is any indication, the writings of the prodigal Peter can and will with confidence be ignored, and he therefore had best continue to pray for pie in the sky hereafter.

Soldiers Punished for Not Attending Christian Concert on Base : Dispatches from the Culture Wars

Soldiers Punished for Not Attending Christian Concert on Base : Dispatches from the Culture Wars

The HuffPo Is a Joke

Pete Enns writing for the bastion of woo The Huffington Post:

Some atheists claim to have a sure and certain knowledge about spiritual things. "I know -- through reason, logic, and evidence -- that God does not exist." These atheists feel that their position is intellectually superior to a belief in God. God does not exist because what cannot be established through "reason, logic, or evidence" is not real.

This sounds rational and objective, but there is a lot of belief tucked away in this assertion. Atheists do not know God does not exist; they believe it.

Any atheist that says that they know God does not exist is a fool though I haven't met any such atheist and I'd like to see people like Enns actually give examples of says they know. Ok, so I don't believe God exists? What's wrong with that?

To say that God's existence is detectable with certainty through reason, logic, and evidence is a belief because it makes some crucial assumptions. For one thing, it assumes that our intellectual faculties are the best, or only, ways of accessing God. This is an assumption that privileges Western ways of knowing and excludes other wholly human qualities like emotion and intuition.

Here Enns is defining God in a way that puts God beyond of the realm of science. He may very well be. Again though I do not actually see how we can even attempt to detect God and I've never heard an atheist make a good case for it. Leave it to a writer for the HuffPo to attack "Western ways". There's nothing Western about excluding emotion and intuition. It's simply something science does not allow for. You may have emotions and feelings about God's existence but that is not proof for God anymore than someone saying they have emotions about the existence of aliens.

I know some real live atheists, and they do not claim to know as much as some others do. The reason that they are atheists is that "God is" is a less compelling proposition to explain their reality than "God is not."

They did not come to this sure and certain conclusion by a calm and logical assessment of the evidence (as opposed to the unreasonable and illogical faith of religious types). Rather, they came to their atheism for many different types of reasons, some of which are too subtle to quantify.

They do not claim to know that God does not exist; they believe it to be so because it makes most sense of their own lives and the world around them. This is not sure and certain knowledge; it is a belief.

Oddly, some Christian fundamentalists and some atheist fundamentalists suffer under the same delusion, that their view on ultimate reality is fully supported by reason, logic, and evidence.

Both are wrong.

We are in agreement that anyone who claims to know is wrong, however, I've never meant an atheist who claims to "know".

Futurama Tackles Creationism - And Wins

http://www.ugo.com/tv/futurama-tackles-creationism-and-wins

From Alex Zalben:

Fine, fine, I guess there’s something to be said for presenting both sides of an issue.

Last night on Futurama, we were treated to what might be the first hilarious honest debate about creationism versus evolution. And while as an episode the logic may not have made sense, and the B-plot was disposable, at best, the main thrust of the episode was smart, funny, and necessary.

Fed up with a creationist ape named Dr. Banjo, Farnsworth and crew head to an abandoned planet to start over. Once there, Farnsworth releases a gaggle of water-cleaning nanobots, who, interacting with the toxic sewage in the planet’s lakes, end up quickly evolving. Over the next few days, the crew gets to witness the whole of robot evolution, even ending up in a Scopes-like trial to prove that evolution and creation are sometimes one and the same thing.

I’m gonna make no bones about it (pun intended): creationism is pretty darn stupid. There’s a willful ignoring of facts for no good reason, and a blatant hatred of the other sides point of view that’s reprehensible at best, and downright dangerous at worst. And yes, I’m aware I’m trashing them as a way of making my point, but that’s where Futurama comes in.

Towards the end of the episode, Farnsworth agrees that it's possible some great big being in the sky could have created life, and Dr. Banjo agrees that it's possible evolution could exist as well, that this being could have jumpstarted things and then left. There’s an open-mindedness there that is almost never brought to the creationism debate, and that’s what leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Science states that anything is possible, you just have to prove it to be true – but creationists jump on that to say, “You can’t prove it’s not true, so it must be true!”

It’s the gotcha methods and tautologies that end up tanking their side of the non-issue, as brilliantly illustrated in a sequence where Dr. Banjo keeps pointing out more and more miniscule missing links that science has not discovered. I don’t know if there’s a great big guy in the sky – maybe there is, maybe there’s not. He doesn’t rule my life, and I don’t care if he rules yours. Just don’t tell me I’m wrong for saying I don’t care.

Which, in essence, is what Futurama was – and is always – saying.

This makes me want to go and watch Futurama again. It's been too long.

Creationism: Don’t Use the “C-Word”

From Lauri Lebo:

When I read Bruce Chapman’s American Spectator column yesterday, in which the president of the Discovery Institute back pedaled from a Louisiana creationism mishap he helped spawn, I thought of this: When Danger Reared its Ugly Head He Bravely Turned his Tail and Fled

Once again, after pushing for anti-evolution language that opens the door to teaching creationism, the good fellows at the Discovery Institute bravely turned around and ran away from the local creationist-talking school board members who want to champion their cause.

Because the DI’s first rule about creationism? Don’t talk about creationism.

In this case, the Livingston Parish School District, in a discussion regarding the 2008 Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), which Discovery Institute helped write, wanted to know when they could start teaching kids creationism in science class. Board members asked a staff committee to research the possibility for the 2011-2012 school year.

The discussion came up during a report on the pupil progression plan for the 2010-11 school year, delivered by Jan Benton, director of curriculum. Benton said that under provisions of the Science Education Act enacted last year by the Louisiana Legislature, schools can present what she termed “critical thinking and creationism” in science classes. Board Member David Tate quickly responded: “We let them teach evolution to our children, but I think all of us sitting up here on this School Board believe in creationism. Why can’t we get someone with religious beliefs to teach creationism?” (See my previous posts here and here.)

In lobbying for LSEA, the Discovery Institute had worked closely with the Louisiana Family Forum, a conservative Christian organization that directly championed the teaching of creationism as recently as 2004. (Read how Louisiana Coalition for Science’s Barbara Forrest connects the dots here.) However, because of that pesky First Amendment, which prohibits using public school biology class as a pulpit, creationism is never specifically mentioned in the LSEA. Instead, LSEA relies on code language to attack the teaching of evolution and other subjects that Christian fundamentalists hate because it contradicts their narrow religious worldview - reality be damned.

The language that was inserted into the LSEA, which the Livingston school district properly understood to mean it could teach creationism, says that the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education must “allow and assist” school boards “to create and foster an environment” in public schools that “promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning.” In addition to state-approved textbooks, teachers “may use supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner.”

In his column, Chapman disingenuously writes:

Tate’s fulminations are not characteristic of the educators and legislators who passed the new Louisiana law, but you can be sure that the Darwinist opponents of the law will try to make them sound representative. The same thing happened in Dover, Pennsylvania, in 2005 when school board members decided to grab onto the phrase (not the reality) of “intelligent design” to promote religious doctrine. The board members, as in Livingston, Louisiana, were as ignorant of the limits of the scientific case against strict Darwinism as they were of the content of intelligent design theory. The scientists and political scientists at Discovery Institute—colleagues of mine—who actually know something about intelligent design, tried to dissuade them, but to no avail. The Dover board members did not believe that a court could stop them. But a central Pennsylvania federal judge, John E. Jones, did stop them.
It’s interesting that Chapman brings up Dover. Discovery initially encouraged Dover board members. It provided them with videos touting intelligent design, which board members required science teachers to watch. But when board members wanted to pursue intelligent design, DI backed up, instead urging the watered-down “teach the controversy.” But just as in the case of Livingston, Dover board members correctly interpreted that code language like “intelligent design” and “teach the controversy” were merely other ways of saying “creationism.” And after the board members’ remarks about creationism became too widely reported to ignore, the Discovery Institute tried to distance itself from the case and ran away.

Italian atheists lobby against church bells

From Trust of India:

An Italian atheist group campaigning for a quiet life called for tighter restrictions on church bells ringing in the Tuscan town of Pisa, after complaints about the noise from locals. "The municipality is preparing new rules on noise pollution and we have sent our proposal, requesting that bells ring on bank holidays from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm (local time)," the Union of Rationalist Atheists and Agnostics said on Wednesday.

The URAA, which is also campaigning to ban crucifixes from display in Italian state schools, sent its proposal to the local council to be discussed in September, Giovanni Mainetto, the URAA's Pisa official, said.

"We have received complaints about the excessive noise produced by loud-speakers installed in Pisa's historical centre during religious processions that last well past 10:00 pm (local time)," the UAAR said in a letter.

The association argues that just as union demonstrations would be expected to take place in the daytime, the same should apply to religious processions.

On its website, the UAAR offers advice on how to combat the noise of church bells and refers to past cases of priests who have been fined for "seriously compromising" the peace and relaxation of residents living near bell towers.

This doesn't even seem like it needs to be a religious issue. Noise is noise and if it is disturbing the peace it needs to be stopped.

Former Atheist: Christianity Really Does Make Sense

Holly Ordway, an ex-atheist is now a Christian. She'd love to tell you that Christianity is true and that's not just faith, she has evidence.

"I was startled to find that Christian theism had significantly better explanatory power than atheistic naturalism, in terms of explaining why the world is the way it is, and in accounting for my own experiences within it," she recounted, according to Biola. "Learning more about the Incarnation and about God, the most holy Trinity, has further reinforced my confidence that Christianity really does make sense of the world in a way no other worldview does."

She found that "St. Paul's forthright declaration that Christianity is based on the historical, witnessed events of Christ’s death and resurrection," that "theology and philosophy offered real answers" to her questions and weren't an appeal to blind faith, and that "the history of the Church did not conform to [her] image of the Christian faith as a self-serving, politically useful fiction."

Her intellectual pride was broken and she was humbled by God's goodness as she began to see herself as a sinner.

"I don’t 'believe' because I like the idea and want it to be true. I don’t 'believe' because I think Christianity makes sense intellectually (although that was a necessary foundation to my faith). In fact, I wouldn’t say that I 'believe' in God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or that I 'believe' I have a personal relationship with Him: I would say that I know these things to be true," the former atheist emphatically stated in a 2007 blog entry.

Not to anyone's surprise, she fails to actually state what this evidence is. For someone who is supposedly educated she displays massive amounts of ignorance in stating that we have a strong historical, and witnesses accounts for the death of Christ. None of the Gospels were written until well after Christs death, that's not a good eye witness account, especially when we consider the supposed miracles of the work of Christ.

Funny how these theists find it to be a good thing that her intellectual pride was broken and she viewed her self as a sinner, in other words, worthless. We need to be proud of holding intellectual views, as opposed to swimming in ignorance, which she seems content in doing.

Atheists can be ethical: Anglican archbishop | The Australian

Atheists can be ethical: Anglican archbishop | The Australian

What's this? A religious leader making perfect sense?

PERTH Anglican Archbishop Roger Herft has clashed with his Catholic counterpart over Julia Gillard's atheism.

He warned it was "unhelpful and untrue" to suggest the Christian faith had a monopoly on moral integrity.

The Anglican leader cautioned against making simplistic assessments of religious beliefs in an election context and said Ms Gillard had assured the electorate she would respect people with religious convictions.

"Any statement which portrays the Christian faith as having some type of exclusivity to be the sole arbiter on matters of moral integrity and just policy-making are unhelpful and untrue," Archbishop Herft told The Weekend Australian.

"Christians need to remind themselves that those who do not profess the Christian faith are still capable of adopting an ethical and moral framework which assists in public policy decision-making for the common good."

The comments follow controversial statements this week by Perth Catholic Archbishop Barry Hickey, who suggested Ms Gillard's atheism could cost her votes.

The Catholic Church leader said he was not telling people not to vote for Ms Gillard, but some would wonder what the future held under an atheist and it might influence their votes.

"Many Christians are concerned that someone who does not believe in God may not endorse the Christian traditions of respect for human life, for the sanctity of marriage and the independence of churches, church schools and church social welfare agencies," Archbishop Hickey said. But Archbishop Herft -- who believes election campaigns have become so vicious they may tarnish the nation's soul -- said believers and non-believers alike should be embraced by the church.

He said politicians were influenced by a range of factors, both religious and secular, when making cabinet and parliamentary decisions, but they were drawn to the job out of a desire to serve the common good.

"It is interesting that in the context of an election, those who profess a certain faith and, indeed, those who do not, have their beliefs assessed very simplistically as either a positive or negative influence based on the whim of the day or the policy area to which it is being applied," he said.

Herft is reminding is followers not to stereotype atheists as immoral. We atheists also need to avoid stereotypes, such as claiming that all religious people hold irrational views. Herft is one of those religious men that we should be willing to find common ground with, even if we don't hold the view on every issue. It's unwise to paint all theists with the same brush in order to create conflict where it does not exist.

The Press Association: Atheists could set up own schools

The Press Association: Atheists could set up own schools

From UKPA:

Atheists would be able to set up their own schools under the Government's education reforms, Michael Gove has said.
The Education Secretary said he would be "interested" to look at proposals from individuals such as outspoken atheist Professor Richard Dawkins.
Prof Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, said last month that he liked the idea of setting up a "free-thinking free school".
Speaking at a Commons education select committee, Mr Gove said: "One of the most striking things that I read recently was a thought from Richard Dawkins that he might want to take advantage of our education legislation to open a new school which was set up on an explicitly atheist basis.
"It wouldn't be my choice of school, but the whole point about our education reforms is that they are, in the broad sense of the word, small "l", liberal. That they exist to provide that greater degree of choice."
Mr Gove, whose two children attend primary faith schools, told the cross-party group of MPs that he "recognised that there are some people who explicitly do not want their children educated in a faith-based setting".
He said: "One of the principles behind our education reforms is to give people the maximum amount of choice so that those people, and they may not themselves necessarily have a very strong religious faith, but who believe that the ethos and values of faith-based education are right for their child, have that choice but others who want a different approach can take it as well."
Speaking afterwards, Mr Gove said he had seen a reference to Professor Dawkins expressing an interest in establishing a school, adding: "If Professor Dawkins wants to set up a school we would be very interested to look at an application."
Prof Dawkins, a former Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, said in a conversation on the Mumsnet website last month: "I like the idea very much, although I would prefer to call it a free-thinking free school.
"I would never want to indoctrinate children in atheism, any more than in religion. Instead, children should be taught to ask for evidence, to be sceptical, critical, open-minded."

I like that idea. I agree, it shouldn't be an "atheist" school. However, Dawkin's definition of what his school would be should be the standard for all schools.

Reptile footprints in N.B. re-date evolution

Reptile footprints in N.B. re-date evolution

From Randy Boswell:

Dozens of fossilized reptile footprints left behind 318 million years ago in present-day New Brunswick will rewrite the history of animal evolution on land, says a team of Canadian and British researchers.

Their discovery along a Bay of Fundy sea-cliff is detailed today in the journal Paleogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.

The ancient trackways are not only the world's earliest evidence of reptilian life, they are also the first known signs of vertebrates -- animals with a backbone -- living in a continental interior, far from any ocean.

Older fossils of amphibian species -- ancestors to the reptiles -- have been documented by scientists probing primordial coastal environments.

But the new reptile footprints are proof that these creatures -- the ancestors of all dinosaurs and mammals, including humans -- had adapted to dry, inland ecosystems at a time when the world's continents were fused in a single mass called Pangaea and the future Canada was in tropical climes near the Earth's equator.

The footprints were found in 2008 by University of London paleontologist Howard Falcon-Lang as he searched for fossils among piles of boulders along the steep Fundy seacoast, near the southern New Brunswick town of St. Martins. Now at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, the sandstone strand was once an inland riverbed 500 kilometres from the ocean when several reptiles up to 20 centimetres in length -- and looking "a bit like a gecko," says Falcon-Lang -- made their mark more than 300 million years ago.

"The footprints were found as I tripped and fell while climbing," he told. "The boulder I grazed my knee on was covered in reptile tracks."

Falcon-Lang, who has made several important discoveries in Eastern Canada over the years, added: "While looking at the rocks, I could imagine the earliest reptiles scampering around a contracting water hole -- the first pioneers to invade the dry continental interiors."

At least three separate creatures, all from the era when certain amphibian species were morphing into reptiles, are believed to have left trackways at the site: Hylonomus lyelli, Dendrerpeton and Calligenethlon.

The world's earliest reptile-body fossils come from a 315-million-year-old coastal setting in Nova Scotia. And reptile tracks of a similar age were found by Falcon-Lang and other scientists in New Brunswick in 2007.

The new find pushes back the history of reptile life by a "trifling" few million years, Falcon-Lang says. But more importantly, he argues, it represents the moment when such advanced species began colonizing inland environments -- a key stage in the evolution of animals from marine to terrestrial habitats. Key to this transition was the reptile's development of eggs with hard shells that could be laid on land, giving the creatures the freedom "to explore the heart of the Pangaean supercontinent," Falcon-Lang says.

"At first, life was restricted to coastal swamps where lush rainforest existed, full of giant ferns and dragonflies," co-author Mike Benton, a University of Bristol paleontologist, states in a summary of the study. "However, when reptiles came on the scene they pushed back the frontiers, conquering the dry continental interiors."

While relatively small and simple compared to later reptiles, says Falcon-Lang, the creatures that left the footprints were part of an animal-invasion wave "that gave rise to both the dinosaurs and the mammals, the group to which we belong. So the story we report of reptiles invading the continental interiors actually laid the foundations for all diverse land ecosystems that followed, including humans."

He added: "It was one small step for a reptile, but one giant leap for life on land."