Creationism growing in European schools

[romeothemonk]

quote:Originally posted by Markstar


The church is the same: They hold on to their view on the world as long as they possible can until there is no more way around it. For them, the earth was flat and only when people started to come back at the other side, they finally "revised" their position.


- People are stupid, that's why they fall for that crap.

You had two really good points, one I agree with wholeheartedly, and one I can attempt to prove wrong.
First, I agree that people are entirely stupid (myself included).

On the point of the church contending that the earth is flat, I will attempt to argue this point using Saint Thomas Aquinas. More details availible at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas

In his works, one of the fundamental tenats of Catholic Theology, and inspiration for a majority Dante's Divine Comedy (See how many cross-references there are between the two), he states that the world is round. In the time frame from 1225-1274!! He even states that it could be proven by using the greek astronomers and mathemiticians!! I will admit that I have not read all of Aquinas, or even more than 30 pages or so, but that nugget jumped out at me in the first 30 pages of the book I was reading in my high school library.
According to my much more "modern" texts, they claim that the catholic church held doggedly to a position of a flat earth until well after Magellen!! Somewhere in here there is a disconnect, and this common rebuttal to ID can be disproven, at least to some extent.

Present the Truth, and it shall set you free!!

[romeothemonk]

quote:Originally posted by kryszcztov


How do I handle death?
In any case, you don't need to think about it. Just prepare to die. We'll all get the same treatment, it's not because you believe in Heaven that there is a Heaven. If you're a good man and if there is a Heaven, you'll end up there. If you're a good man and if there is no life after death, you'll die and rot, and jump into total void, just like before your birth. So, no need of believing, just act good.
Is there an afterlife?
SURPRISE ! You won't ever know before dying anyway. And you won't know it if there is nothing.

But don't throw your agenda on the Youth, they didn't ask for it.

Thanks for the good answer Krys! You are actually mostly right down the middle in Socratic thinking, with one exception. Socrates appeared to be monotheistic, as in he knew the Greek Pantheon was crap. This is from my copies of Plato writing for Socrates, but it was published by Harvard University Press in the early first half of the 1900's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics
From this, springs the Apostle Paul's comment on the Alter to the unknown God!

Anyway, the fundamental precept of all the religions that I have been exposed to which include the following list: Catholicism, Protestantism, Mormanism, Lakota Sioux, Islam, Judiasm, and Hinduism, all refute the lynchpin of your arguement on death. All men are not treated equal when they die. They also have the same tenat that being "good enough" isn't enough, that faith is required, and that good works will come from the faith.

Sola Fide

[grahamiam]

quote:Originally posted by romeothemonk
Present the Truth, and it shall set you free!!

You should do this too, for you know that in the history of the Church, for every Thomas Aquinas, there's a Galileo Galilei. Anyways, St. Thomas was not a scientist, he was a philospher, so if you're suggesting his arguments support ID, then they should be taught in Philosophy, not science class.

[Matrix]

Sorry, but that makes no sense at all. Philosophy is science. Or even better: philosophy is the basis of science. One first starts to wonder before one research.

[Markstar]

@romeo: Thank you! I stand corrected on the whole "flat earth" thing, as it seems that, contrary to popular belief, it was already widely known in the 8th century.

However, my point still exists: The church did prosecute people who questioned the church. And often enough even those who didn't but were just a little different.

[mauer]

This episode is a rerun. I've seen it a million times before.

[Matrix]

quote:Originally posted by mauer

This episode is a rerun. I've seen it a million times before.

Well, indeed. This again turned into a creationism vs evolutionism debate, to which I'm also guilty in participating (mainly because I have never participated in one before). My main goal was to evoke comments on the newspaper article itself.

But you know, American (neo-)conservatism is in our black book, and this article is just a result of that. To put it bluntly: conservatives/republicans are orthodox christian and therefore believe in creationism. And us Dutchmen have made up our mind about this debate: we believe in the theory of evolution, and those who believe in creationism have blinkers on and just believe anything that's written in the bible. That's basically the general opinion here. I know it's not very diplomatic. We have a hard time dealing with the orthodox catholic Polish and Italians in the European Union...

[sz_matyas]

While the debate is interesting so far, I still haven't heard much response on the teaching of ID (NOT CREATIONISM, though they are somewhat related). ID is science, creationism when it attaches itself would belong in a philosophy class (which actually was where science was taught through the 17th century and in many universities into the 19th century, lacking a science department/classes).

@grahamiam: If you have a problem with the church and Galileo, you should probably go read a history of science textbook. His work was accepted by the church and even sponsored by them until he started actively taunting the pope. In his famous Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Galileo used three characters a Heliocentric, a Geocentric and an undecided skeptic. While the pope really should have fit into the character of the skeptic, Galileo placed him as the Geocentrist, whom he named Simplicius, a double insult. Galileo further upset him by placing outdated arguments in the mouth of Simplicius to have him get trapped and appear the fool.

Galileo was given the chance to rewrite this before publication (the church allowed research into heliocentrism at the time, just it couldn't be stated as a proven fact, just as the church allows research into evolution without allowing it to be stated as fact). He chose not to and because he had written the book under conditional approval and broke the conditions he was banned and his arrogance after the fact led to his persecution and house arrest.

[akots]

quote:Originally posted by romeothemonk
In fact from a metaphysical state the most important questions include:
Where did we come from?
Where are we going?
How do I handle death?
Is there an afterlife?

In the purpose of education, both sides should be presented such that people can draw their own conclusions.

My best statement in this matter comes from John Milton's "Areopagitica": "Do not restrict the writing and teachings, for all that you need to do is present the truth, and it shall triumph"

Your metaphysical questions are somewhat incorrectly asked. One cannot speak there as "we" and has to change it to "I" since generalization is not very appropriate. And if one answers to these question from scientific POV, the answers would be true but ridiculous. For example:
1. Where did I come from? - From my parents and from genetic recombination of their genetic material and from the environment which influenced my development.
2. Where am I going? - I am going to die in the end.
3. How do I handle death? - You cannot change the outcome, so try to get comfortable with it.
4. Is there and afterlife? - Yes, you become dust and this dust belongs to this world. But this dust will be dead, so no, there is no afterlife.

I am not an atheist but neither am I a very religious person.

Regarding the purpose of education, imo, its main purpose is to hammer into child's head something about what is wrong and what is right. If you teach something wrong without actually telling that this is wrong, this mean that you don't teach well. Nobody is teaching that earth is flat nowdays. However, children are told that long time ago people thought that earth is flat but this is wrong since it is round.

IMO, POV of Milton is quite naive to the very least.

[akots]

quote:Originally posted by mauer
...
My main argument here would be that (w/o declaring a "winner") kids are smart. With the goal of the education system being to teach, why not teach them both sides? Or at the very least, teach them opposing viewpoints and let them decide based on the evidence. Seriously, isn't the educational system supposed to nurture thought rather than censor information?

I'm not sure about that. It is taught that something is wrong and something is right. If you tell something wrong you have to tell that this is wrong. Especially this is true for evolution theory since it is so unbelievably complex, there is no way somebody can figure it out just because he is smart. However, the evidence presented as a proof should be solid scientific evidence and this is quite hard to come around with theory of evolution.

Also, a word "theory" is quite misleading. For example, there is "theory" of relativity but it is actually not as much a theory as a proven fact. While ToE is supposed to be a "theory", it is quite proven at its present state so that it can be considered as a fact. It had not settled down completely but it is a rather solid area of science explaining very well most of the known facts. it does not looks like something more is expected at this time point. Also, it is an active theory and moving forward at a lightning speed with recent progress in genetics and systems biology.